


The Great Divide Chapter 29 : Blood

by Antigravity_Carnivore



Series: The Great Divide [29]
Category: Breaking Benjamin (Band), Project Vela, STARSET (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Future, Future Fic, M/M, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-17 21:08:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14839200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Antigravity_Carnivore/pseuds/Antigravity_Carnivore
Summary: Near the end of the journey to save Brock's soul and stop Prox from being destroyed, Dustin and Thomas team up with a unexpected ally, but is he really a friend, or will his own motives put the boys in danger?





	The Great Divide Chapter 29 : Blood

“Sit down, Dustin.” Keith said as I stared slack jawed and dumb founded. I couldn’t help gazing at him in complete and utter disbelief. Twenty-three years have passed we left the ruined Earth behind us, and now here was my friend standing before me, looking exactly as he did on the last day I had seen him before I so foolishly took my own life. He wasn’t wearing any FEC or Messenger gear, but instead dressed in a casual pair of blue jeans with a black t-shirt and a black hoodie. It was almost as if he had stepped right out of time and ended up here on Prox. I didn’t know why or how he was here, but it made me happy; not just for my own sake but for Ben’s too. They had always been close friends, near to the point of brothers, and perhaps this is what Benjamin needed to snap him out of the dark depression that had been closing in on him. I wanted to reach out and hug Keith, but I could tell from the look in his eyes that we weren’t exactly at that point yet. The fact that he was still pointing a gun at me was proof enough. He shoved the barrel of the weapon into my chest forcefully. “I told you to sit down, Dustin. Just do as I say and things will go a whole lot smoother okay?”

I continued staring at him, trying to search his eyes for some bit of understanding, but I found nothing there. Resigning myself to my fate for the moment, I did as he asked, knowing that it would be easier to talk to him if he wasn’t so on edge. As I sat down in the chair, he placed the weapon down on the desk in front of me and retrieved some zip ties, which be busied himself with, restraining my arms and legs. As he worked, I knew that this was my moment to try and gain some information from him. “How is it that you are here like this?” I asked quietly. “It doesn’t make sense, you haven’t aged a bit.”

Finishing his work, Keith rose back up to his feet and picked up the mug from the desk, which still had some hot coffee in it. I could see the wisps of steam rising off the liquid inside, and I realized that I hadn’t had coffee in a long time and suddenly wanted one very badly. Leaning backwards against the desk, he took a sip, seemingly enjoying the intense injection of caffeine into his system and gazed at me over the rim of the cup through the lenses of his glasses. “You know, I could ask you the exact same thing, Dustin. Ron and Adam, they watched you jump off that cliff on the beach. They said that they tried to talk you out of killing yourself, but you just wouldn’t listen.” He hesitated for a moment, lowering the cup, but keeping his fingers tightly wrapped around it for warmth. “Your body was never recovered; you know, the authorities said something about the high tides carrying it out to sea. You just… disappeared. That is why I was so shocked when I saw you here in the vehicle with that other man yesterday. I couldn’t believe that it really was you.”

“Thomas.” I gripped the arm rest tightly. “His name is Thomas! Wait, you were the one who brought him here? You were the one that handed him over to Rhiannon and put that visor on him?” I could feel the anger and confusion rising inside of me. I was only a friend of Keith’s through Ben, but he always surrounded himself with good, trustworthy people, there was no way that Keith would be working with her, there had to be some other factors involved. “Why did you do that? What could have possibly led you to even consider working with her? Do you know what she’s planning on doing?”

Keith snapped back at me quickly. “Listen, I was only doing what I was told to do! So calm the fuck down. When we got here, she came to us and told us that she needed our help. This is Benjamin’s wife, Dustin; do you honestly think that we can tell her no? She went on to explain that Ben wasn’t dead, but trapped here with her son, and she wanted to get all of them, and the two of us back to where and when we rightfully belonged, back on Earth in our proper time. I didn’t fully believe her at first, but there was no other choice at the time. So she sent me out to set up an ambush and disable the vehicle that Ben would be driving in on his way through this area, because he wasn’t going to cooperate and this was the only alternative. I didn’t like the idea, but I really had no clue what was going on. The problem is that when I got out there, it wasn’t Benjamin in the vehicle; it was you and this... Thomas person. When I saw you there, I knew that Rhiannon wasn’t lying, if you were here and still alive, then there was a possibility that Benjamin could still be alive too.” I saw the hands that Keith was holding the coffee in start to shake slightly, and he seemed to be a little rattled and anxious as he spoke. He lowered his head a little. “She told me not to come back empty handed. I…I don’t think it was a threat, but she said that if I didn’t bring Benjamin back, that she would…” He stopped and looked at me a little disturbed. There was something there that he was trying his best to avoid telling me about. “She took Thomas away and told me to wait here and guard this room; because this is ‘his’ army and ‘he’ will need it for when he is awakened. Whatever that means. I had no idea what she’s planning, and quite frankly I don’t care. As long as I get Ben back that’s all I care about. So I was told to sit here and guard this room…and that’s exactly what I am doing.” Keith stopped and took a long drink and then carefully placed the cup back down onto the desk. “I left you out there, Dustin because I didn’t want you involved. I knew who you were, I remember Ben talking about you. Something seems wrong about all of this, but I am trapped here with no other alternative. A choice had to be made and so I made it, in hopes that if maybe if this whole deal does go south, you’d have a chance to escape.” He came to stand in front of me and his entire demeanor seemed to change. “You’re with Benjamin now, aren’t you?”

Shocked and slightly confused by his awkward question, I knew that I should have probably found a gentler way of answering, but instead I just blurted the words out. “Yes, we’ve been together as a couple for a while now. He’s everything to me.” I said calmly. “How do you know?”

Keith sighed. “Dustin, Rhiannon and Ben….they’ve been together since high school. She helped him through his addiction; she’s the mother of his child, and the only woman he has ever loved. You could hear it in her voice as she spoke to us, pleading with us to help her. She sounded so lonely and desperate. They loved each other for years, and everyone knew that they would never separate. So IF Benjamin was really here, there had to be reason why he wasn’t coming to her, something that would keep him away, and I guess I am looking right at it now.” He picked up the weapon off the desk and aimed it at me again. “I gave you the opportunity to turn around and leave this place last night, and you chose not to take it. Now I can’t let you go. Tell me where Benjamin is.”

Taking a deep breath, I moved slightly in the chair, the zip ties giving me little room for comfort. I had to remain calm; breaking down right now wouldn’t solve anything. Keith wasn’t a bad guy, not in the least bit, and I just had to make sure that I spoke to him calmly and directly, and hope that he would listen to reason. “Keith, you have to listen to me. Rhiannon is insane. She’s not the same person that you once knew… she’s not even a person right now but some fucked up spirit. Her son is dead. He died here on Prox one year ago to the day, along with Brock. She’s desperate to bring him back, and the only way to do that is to put his soul into another body, in this case, Benjamin’s grandson, a three month old child.”

“Little Ben was here? The child that was kidnapped?” Keith said. “I can’t believe it…the rest of the boys, and Adam and Ron, we searched everywhere for him we thought that the poor boy was murdered and his body dumped somewhere by some sick, depraved lunatic. Even after Rhiannon’s accident, we kept looking, hoping that we could find some sign of him, and he was here the entire time?”

I could tell from the tone in Keith’s voice that he believed me. I relaxed a little. “Yes, but time has passed here since he was taken. 23 years to be exact. He was no longer the child that you once knew, but a grown man that called himself Burnley.”

Keith sat the gun down on the desk and returned to his coffee. I started to feel a bit impatient. This was not the time for coffee and casual conversations, but I knew that if I rushed him, or tried to force him into any decisions, it could be potentially bad. I had to let him talk. “I remember when we were on tour in the UK and during the set up times, Rhiannon and I would take little Ben.. er.. Burnley out to the local amusement parks or zoos whenever Benjamin was busy. He absolutely loved to listen to the street musicians, if he saw someone with a guitar; he would jump right out of his stroller and run over to them, dancing along with their music. He loved being outside with the sunshine on his face. I can’t imagine him as an adult. What was he like?”

I had to choke back feelings. I had no idea what to say. Keith was looking at me, expecting a truthful answer, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell him about the horrible things that Burnley had done. I was trying to gain his trust here, not lose it, and even if I did confess to him that Ben’s son had turned out to be a horrible monster, what good would it do? I had to choose my words very carefully. “The FEC held him for many years. They tortured him and treated him like nothing more than a science experiment to be used in their awful plans to destroy Ben and the Messengers.” An involuntary shiver ran down my spine, remembering Burnley’s words as he forced himself onto me, turning my own body against me and making me soar to the heights of physical pleasure, and then slamming me back down by placing a tremendous guilt upon my shoulders. I could still hear those words whispered in my ear, and feel the fluttering sensation of his lips on the curve of my ear while he held me down in his vice like grip. I bit down on my bottom lip and looked away from Keith for a moment, overcome with emotion and a wave of feelings that I was unprepared for. 

As I sat there, no longer able to think logically, Keith suddenly approached me and with a few quick movements, snipped each of the zip ties off, releasing me from the chair. He slipped the weapon into his pocket and offered me some of the much needed life giving coffee that I had been eyeing up earlier. I looked at him curiously as he returned to leaning against the desk with his arms crossed over his chest. “Go on. Tell me more.”

I gratefully accepted the coffee and took a sip, letting the now lukewarm infusion of cream and sugar make its way down my throat. It felt good and made me feel a bit more human. “Burnley eventually ‘escaped’ from the FEC and rebelled against them, but it was too late. The base that we all been confined to, Burnley included, had been rigged up with explosives by a rogue group of Messengers. We all just barely managed to make it out, with the exception of Burnley, and…Brock…Brock went back for him…there simply wasn’t enough time and they were in it when it exploded.” My voice fell flat and all I could do was stare down into the swirling depths of the coffee.

Pushing his glasses back up onto his nose, Keith tilted his head and stared at me curiously. “Benjamin was with you then?”

“Yes.” I mumbled, not bothering to look up at him. “He had been previously captured by the FEC and was being held prisoner there for several months. We went in to rescue him.”

“So he chose you over his own son, his flesh and blood.”

My hands were shaking so badly now, it was a struggle to hold onto the cup. This wasn’t how I wanted this conversation to go. Almost every day I thought about that night, running it over and over in my head, reliving it, analyzing it and thinking what I could have done differently to change things, but never once did I think about Ben. I was so consumed by the thought about losing Brock, that it never crossed my mind that Ben was losing something too, his own son. I lost part of myself that night when Brock died with Burnley, and became so devastated that I was completely unable to move or speak. It was Ben who came and gathered me up in his arms and took me to safety, if it wasn’t for him, I also would have died out there in the wind and rain. He never had the choice, because I was too needy, too dependent on him. “I guess that I never gave him the choice. I assumed that he wouldn’t go back in for him. Burnley wasn’t in his right mind at that point. I couldn’t imagine that Ben would want to risk himself for someone who hated and despised him.”

Keith looked right at me, or rather, right through me. “Did you ever think to ask him if he might want to go back and save him? Or did you think that maybe Burnley was a threat to you and your relationship with Ben?” 

“It wasn’t like that. Burnley was….” I had to stop. Anything I could think of saying at this point sounded like an excuse, when the simple truth was, that I never even considered Ben’s wishes or thoughts in the matter. I whispered underneath my breath. “Maybe you're right.. maybe he sacrificed his own son for me, but it's because he loves me.”

Keith walked away from me. “Goddamn it Dustin, I don’t know much about Prox here, but there are people back home that still cared for him and needed him, not just you. Are you aware of how many people he has touched with his music, his humble generosity and just general good nature? Thousands, maybe more. He never had a single selfish thought in his head, not until you came along. I hope you’re pleased with yourself now.” Walking away from me, Keith started pacing around the room, running his hands through his sandy colored hair. “Is that why Rhiannon wanted me to bring Benjamin back to her? Because she’s jealous and wants her husband back, free from your brainwashing or is there more to this than you are telling me? What does Benjamin being here have to do with putting Burnley’s soul back into his body?”

“It doesn’t have anything to do with them getting back together! He doesn't want her! 0 Ben is a threat to her, and she wanted to remove that threat.” I said, turning to face him. It wasn’t hard to see that Keith was having conflicting emotions. I couldn’t blame him. He wanted to be faithful to Ben and Rhiannon, but all this new information was like trying to fit too many extra pieces into a already completed puzzle. I placed the cup of coffee back on the desk and rubbed my wrists. “Ben’s the only one who can stop her, but if he does, there is a price to pay, I can’t go into detail, but it’s a high price and we won’t ever be able to get him back. If he goes through with it, it won’t just be me or you losing him, but everyone. He will be gone forever.” I stopped for a moment, thinking back a long time ago to when I had last seen Benjamin with those horrible pitch black wings and red glaring eyes. It was truly something that nightmares were made of. “At least he won’t be the Benjamin that we all know and love; he’d be something else, something terrible. There’s no way I can let that happen.”

Keith stopped his pacing, and stood near the entrance to the room where all the former FEC members’ bodies were being held in a state of stasis. He leaned against the wall and gazed in at their sightless eyes transfixed and permanently open, staring at the blank ceiling. “This place is fucked up. We don’t belong here, but I am not going to leave here without Benjamin. No matter what it costs, I am bringing him back home with me.”

The tone in Keith’s voice assured me that he was deadly serious; I didn’t know how he planned to take Ben back with him, but at least he was willing to work with me, all I had to do was keep him on my side. After we took care of the situation at hand, then we could deal with other, less pressing matters. For a moment I allowed my brain to flirt with the idea of going back home, back to Earth before it was destroyed. It would be so good to walk along the beach again and just listen to the waves crash along the shore line…but if we did go back there, what would be waiting for us? Benjamin was mine here; we had a life together, would he still want me there too? Would the FEC still destroy the Earth? Could history be rewritten? There were just too many things to consider. “Keith, I know where Ben is. If you help me stop Rhiannon from bringing her son back to life, then I will take you to him, but if we wait much longer, I am afraid that Ben will take matters into his own hands and attempt to stop her himself, if he does that, then we lose everything. Please, I am begging you, help me do this.”

Leaning his head back against the wall, I saw the color leave Keith’s face. “You have no idea how powerful she is.” He said quietly. “Or what she’s capable of.”

“She’s willing to murder a innocent child so that her son can live, that’s more than enough atrocity for me to know.” A few quiet moments passed between us. Unsure of what to do, I slowly rose up out of my chair and walked around to where Keith was standing, in the dim light, I could see that there was a look of extreme worry on his face. “She’s holding something over you too, isn’t she Keith?”

“I didn’t come here alone, Dustin. Shaun was with me. When we ran into Rhiannon and she pleaded with us to bring Benjamin to her, we agreed, because we trusted her. I mean what’s a more wholesome thing to do than to help a wife get her husband and father of her child back? It was a no-brainer. As we were preparing to leave, she came to us again and said that I had to go alone; she had ‘other plans’ for Shaun…something about sending him to Dawn because there was something there that needed protecting. I thought it was a bad idea to separate, considering we don’t know where the hell we are, but we went along with it. He still hasn’t returned yet. I am beginning to think that something happened to him.” Keith slammed the bottom of his foot against the wall. “I hate it that I was lied to. Dustin, If I trust you, am I trusting the right person?” he asked. 

My hand went up to the plastic guitar pic that I wore around my neck and I held it tightly in the palm of my hand, curling my fingers around it. I thought about Brock, and how he had trusted me all the way to his final days and I let him down. I never wanted to be put in that position again. “That’s a decision you have to make for yourself.”

Together, we walked back towards the room where I had left Thomas. Keith led the way, and as much as I wanted to talk to him about how he got here, and what was going on back home, I found that I just couldn’t do it. Part of me demanded answers, while the other part wanted to stay in the dark, totally oblivious to whatever was going on there. That life was behind me, and I had no place there anymore, and yet I was curious to find out what happened to the rest of our friends that were left behind. I thought about Ron and Adam, and the terrible position that I had left them in. It wasn’t my intention to hurt them; things just got out of control and I had no way to stop it…at least that’s what I kept telling myself. Looking back on it now, I realized that I wished I had reached out to them; they wanted to help me so bad and all I did was push them away, choosing instead to be seduced by my own self-loathing and hate. I didn’t want that life back, I wanted to be here on Prox with those whom I loved and loved me in return, the past would just have to stay dead and buried. I had exactly what I wanted here, which was Ben, and no one was ever going to take that away from me.

After traveling back up through the twisting corridors for some time, we eventually made our way back to where Thomas was still imprisoned. Upon seeing us, Thomas’s head snapped up and he looked from me to Keith in confusion. “Dustin? Why are you still here? I thought you went back to bring Benjamin here?”

I saw Keith turn and look at me with an accusing stare. “You said that you didn’t want Ben to come back here, and that you were gonna kill Rhiannon. Are you telling people what they want to hear now, Dustin?”

Moving over across the room, I walked past Keith trying to ignore his crass comment for a moment and bent down next to Thomas, who was dreadfully pale and sweating buckets. It was easy to see that he was severely dehydrated and desperately needed to be set free. He had been in the shackles now for over 2 days and he was utterly exhausted from the futile effort of straining against his bonds. “I overheard you and Brock talking after I left and decided to change my plans. If Ben came here, all hell would break lose. I can’t let him become the Shepherd of the Damned, not again, so I decided to go look for Rhiannon on my own.”

Looking up at me with deep brown eyes, I could see a moment of hope pass over Thomas. “Did you find her? Is it over?” he asked in a shaking voice. “I can still hear it raining.”

I lowered my head. “No, not yet. But we know where she is now. She’s at Dawn. We’re going to go there now and finish the job. The storm is getting worse outside and I don’t know how much time we have left, so we have to go…and go now.”

“I know the way!” Thomas said excitedly. “Get me out of here and I will show you a shortcut through the mountains. I remained silent, because I knew that there was no way that he could leave with us, he would have to remain here until we could find a way to free him. He would have to sit this one out. My silence had not gone unnoticed, and the expression of his face changed. And he looked at me with wild, fierce eyes as realization set in. “Dustin, don’t you even fucking think about leaving me here! Not here…not in this place. Please.”

“Thomas, I don’t know how I can release you from those shackles, and we’re running out of time. We have to go to Dawn and the flood waters outside are rising rapidly, soon we won’t be able to go anywhere safely. I would never leave you here but…” 

Reaching out, Thomas grabbed hold of the front of my shirt and gave it a violent tug. The steel chains that held him down to the floor snapped back and prevented him from getting a good grip on it and he let go, with a look of fierceness in his eyes. “Have you forgotten that this is MY planet, Dustin? I grew up here, these are my people and I am responsible for them. If you think for one moment that I am going to stay here and watch as it’s ripped apart then you’re wrong. I have a wife and children out there to protect, and if you’d look beyond the fact of your own little greedy existence for a moment, maybe you’d see that there are other lives in danger too, not just Benjamin.”

I heard Keith move up behind me. “Hey Dustin I…”

Holding my hand up, I stopped him, cutting him off in mid-sentence. I was furious at Thomas’s words now and I did not understand his reasoning. It felt like the entire world was against Ben and I being together, and I couldn’t possibly fathom why. I took a deep breath. “Are you implying that I don’t care for you and Lizzie, Thomas?”

Tilting his head upwards, the heavy weight of the visor making his movements slow and labored, Thomas glared at me. “Brock trusted you and you let him die! If you really cared about him, you could have stopped him from going back to Burnley. I don’t care if you didn’t feel physical love or attraction to him anymore, you were supposed to be his friend. He walked away from you, and you did nothing, because deep inside you felt that if you made any effort to bring him back home with us, that there might be tension between you and Benjamin. You didn’t want to risk losing what you fought so hard for. The funny thing is that he was never a threat to you, Dustin. If you would of handled things differently and assured him that there was still friendship between the two of you, he would have stayed with us. But… no…. you let him fall into a pit depression and think that he was alone in this world, with the only one who would love him is a psychopathic murderer. Brock was your best friend, and you were so eager to throw him away because you had what you wanted, which was Benjamin. If it’s so easy for you to do that to someone that you had known and ‘loved’ for years, then Lizzie and I don’t even stand a chance. It’s always going to be you and Benjamin. So there’s the answer to your question.”

Completely blindsided and hurt by his words, I sat back, not quite knowing what to say. 24 hours ago everything was fine, we were back at the Shallow Bay; now everything was a mess and we were all turning on each other. What had brought us to this point? Did it have something to do with Rhiannon messing with the thin fabric of reality; bending and shifting it to her own will in an effort to get the things that she wanted, screwing up our ability for rational thought? Or were these thoughts and emotions slowly building up over a year, suffering and festering inside of us, waiting for the right moment to be released? I couldn’t possibly think of Thomas lashing out against me like this, he had changed for the better since his marriage to Lizzie. She had taught him the real meaning to kindness and patience, and I found it hard to believe that he would ever say a foul word now against anyone. What was happening to us? I found myself looking at him, my eyes focused on the thin layer of glass of the visor with the dull lights pulsing across his face. He didn’t deserve this. He came here to help Brock find peace, and now everything was falling apart. “Thomas… I…” I struggled to find the words, or find the appropriate things to say to make everything right, they slipped away from me like ice on a spoon. 

“Wait.” Keith said, finally coming to stand next to me. “We all just need to calm down here for a second. No one is getting left behind, so the two of you need to chill out.”

“Damn right!” Thomas answered, finally tearing his accusing eyes off of me. 

I looked at Keith curiously. “I don’t want to leave anyone here, but those chains he’s held down with can’t be unlocked without a special device, and the only one who can remove that visor is the one that put it on him, or someone with superhuman strength to absorb all the energy inside of it, so we’re kind of stuck…and we have to go to Dawn…now.” Thomas’s monologue had put me in a bad mood, and all I wanted to do was leave and make it to the base before Benjamin could find out what was going on and intervene. If he got there first, and things went bad, there was a chance that he’d try to stop Rhiannon on his own, and I’d lose him forever. I looked down at my hands which were shaking and I felt a pit opening up in my stomach. They were right. We were in a crisis here, in danger of losing friends, family and potentially an entire planet, and all I could think about was Ben. How long had I made others suffer for my own selfish desire? I felt miserable and defeated. 

“Dustin, when you entered the restricted area earlier, how did you get in?” Keith asked quietly.

Grateful to get my mind off my inability to be a caring individual, I fished around in my pocket and brought out the small glowing key card that I had found earlier and held it up. The eerie incandescent green glow seemed to have faded since I used it last. “This.” I said. 

Thomas’s eyes widened. “Dustin, do you know what that is?”

I shrugged. “It’s just a electronic key card to open sealed doors here in Eden. That’s all it is, isn’t it?” I asked curiously.

Holding out his hand, waiting for me to hand it over to him, Thomas nodded. “Yes and no. This is one of the two master keys that were designed to open anything that was electronically sealed here in Eden. Benjamin and I both had one. They were designed to override any lock in the entire base, no matter what type. The only downside to them is that the energy that resides inside of them is limited. They can only be used a set number of times before they go dead and have to be recharged. It looks like this one is on its last charge now. Where did you get it from?”

Pulling my hand back away from him, I reexamined it. For the first time, I could see the logo for the Eden base etched into the hard acrylic among the other flowing lines of coding. It was still pulsing with the last few glimmers of power, but very dimly and barely illuminated at all. I knew that I couldn’t tell them about seeing Burnley here, they were both already incredibly upset with me, and admitting that I saw a ghost would only make things worse and stress them out. I decided that a half truth was the way to go. “I found it in a room here when I was searching for Rhiannon in the lower levels.”

Thomas narrowed his eyes. “What room?”

To my astonishment, Keith suddenly stepped forward and grabbed the key out of my hand. “Who cares? Let’s see if it works on these chains.” Without another word, he took the key card and touched it to the receiver on the base of the massive steel shackles. We waited in anticipation, desperate to hear the sound of the metal releasing and the bonds falling off Thomas’s wrists, but nothing happened. Flipping the card around, Keith tried it again, but there was still nothing. Thomas still remained locked in place. 

“I don’t understand, why isn’t it working?” I asked, curious. 

Sighing, Thomas shook his head. “It doesn’t have enough power. Dustin must have used up all the charges in it. The glow that’s left is just probably some residual energy that was left behind. It’s useless now without a power source to charge it back up.”

Standing up, Keith gripped the card in his hand and walked over behind Thomas who was still kneeling in place on the floor. “Lean forward.” 

“No! I know what you’re thinking, and it won’t work! If you tamper with this visor thing, it’s going to hurt like hell. Dustin tried it already and it nearly fried my brain. I am not letting you touch the damn thing.”

“Keith, he’s right. I tried to take it off him and it almost killed him. There’s got to be another way of recharging the key card, siphoning it off the visor isn’t the way to go, we don’t know anything about these old versions of the devices, and if you try and fail it might trigger something worse to happen. It’s not worth the risk. We can go together and find a working computer that might be able to….” Before I could finish my sentence, there was a quiet click and then the lights on the front of Thomas’s visor flickered and went out. The band that held it securely in place across the back of his head unlatched and Keith slowly pulled it off. Thomas was free. I stared with wide eyes. “How did you do that?” 

“Rhiannon said that those visors could only be removed by the person that put it on.” Thomas’s eyes followed Keith as he came back around to stand in front of him fiddling with the small white battery which was the power supply for the device. “Did you put that on me?” He asked in a accusing tone. 

Slipping the key card into the battery, Keith stayed silent, not answering Thomas’s question until there was a low humming sound coming from the visor and the card started to increase in illumination, receiving the first waves of power. “Yes. I was the one who ambushed you and brought you here. While you were unconscious, I put it on you and activated it.” He glanced at Thomas who was now glaring at him. “Don’t start with me, I didn’t even know who you were, I was just following orders. I was oblivious to what was going on, I had no idea that Rhiannon was bat-shit crazy.” Pulling the key card out from the slot in the back of the visor, which was now once again glowing a bright green color, he tossed it down to the floor at Thomas’s knees. “So take a moment and calm yourself down before you free yourself from those chains, and come at me to break my neck. I am on your side.” Holding the visor in his hand, Keith calmly walked away, examining the piece of equipment. 

Reaching forward, I grabbed hold of the card before Thomas could reach it. As I brought it around to the receiver, I leaned forward and whispered to him. “Keith is a good person, Thomas, he didn’t mean to cause you any harm, he was manipulated by Rhiannon. He didn’t know what was going on. I don’t know how he got here, but somehow she took him from where he was and forced him to be here. It wasn’t by his choice that he did the things he did.” I glanced up at him and I could see that he was still glaring at Keith. “Listen to me, he’s innocent. I know him from back on Earth; he was one of Ben’s close friends. Do you think that Ben would have anyone close to him that would be dangerous or a threat? You know that he wouldn’t. Keith just wants to get his friend and go back home. Rhiannon sent him to Dawn, which means that is where her body is. Please don’t waste time here by arguing anymore, let’s just get out of here and stop her before it’s too late.”

The locked deactivated and as the chains fell away, Thomas rubbed his wrists. He was still staring at Keith, but the expression on his face changed to a softer, more understanding one. “Fine, whatever.” He said, slowly rising to his feet. As he did, Keith turned back around and Thomas pointed to the visor. “I want that.”

Raising an eyebrow, Keith looked down at the device in his hands. “Why do you want this thing? It’s out of power now.”

There was a rising feeling of tension in the air. I thought back to when Thomas had rescued me almost a year and a half ago and had smuggled one of the brainwashing FEC visors out of the base with him to be used for ‘medical purposes’. I could see that there was seriousness in his eyes that I had never seen before, aimed at Keith. He wasn’t going to leave without that visor. “What does it matter to you?” He asked. “Hand it over so we can go.”

Turning it over in his hands, Keith ran his fingers over the dark face shield of the device. “No. I don’t think that I will.” He turned toward me. “You said that we’re going to Dawn to confront Rhiannon, and I would be able to see Benjamin again. Is that still the plan?”

“Of course it is, we can leave right now.” 

“I am sorry Thomas.” Keith said, gripping the visor in his hand. “Please understand that finding Shaun and all of us getting back home is my priority now. I can’t let anything get in the way of that.” I saw him pull his arm back and instantly knew what was going to happen. Thomas sprang into action, sprinting across the floor, but he was too far away. Keith’s fingers wrapped around the back of the visor and with one sudden, fluid motion he threw it up against the wall, where it exploded in a bright flash of light. I heard Thomas shout behind me, and then the quiet twinkling of shards of glass as they fell down onto the floor with a beautiful shining brilliance. In a way, I felt completely relieved. 

Thomas stopped in the middle of the room, looking crestfallen and I walked over to him, putting a hand on his shoulder. I expected to be met with resistance and hostility, but instead he just took a breath and lowered his head. “I only wanted it for research, that’s all.” He said quietly. “Rhiannon said it was a relic of the past, and that there were only two in existence. Selene didn’t make these, I wanted to know where they came from. If I could disassemble it, figure out how it works, then maybe when we confront her, there would be a way of deactivating it, instead of killing her. I thought that perhaps we could free her. She’s a victim of the FEC just like the rest of us.”

Gently, I gave him a pat on the back. I knew that his heart was in the right place. Since Selene revealed that she was his mother, Thomas was trying his best to make her proud. He wanted to be the leader that everyone knew and loved. “Thomas, you can’t save everyone. Rhiannon’s been under the influence of this thing for years. The only way to stop her, and protect your family is to kill her, it’s not a bad thing, it’s mercy. Can you imagine being put in a coma for 23 years and kept alive by this thing? It’s living but not really being alive. What we are going to do, we are doing out of kindness.”

He looked at me with those deep brown eyes. “Keep telling yourself that. No matter what you say, it’s still murder, Dustin.” Sighing, he walked away and towards the door. 

Keith joined me and motioned towards Thomas. “Is he going to be okay?”

Looking down at the key-card that I still had in my hand, I noticed that it had lost almost all of it’s color again. Burnley…or at least Burnley’s spirit had led me to this, and it was the crucial item that we needed for our escape. I was so confused by why he would do this. I found that my hand started shaking and I closed my fingers around the thick plastic before Keith could see. “He’s a husband and new father who has a lot riding on his shoulders. He’s thinking with his heart instead of his head, but I know that when the time comes he will do the right thing.” I moved to follow Thomas to the door when Keith grabbed hold of my arm and stopped me.

“Dustin. I want to remind you that I am only helping you because I want to get Shaun back and see Benjamin again. Once I find them, we’re going to go back home. All three of us. You should start to think about your decision on whether or not you want to stay here. No matter what you choose, Benjamin is coming with me. He doesn’t belong here, and you know that.” Keith said in a low voice that gave me the chills.

I frowned. “What did you say earlier about having a choice, Keith? I didn’t give Benjamin a choice whether or not to save his son, and now I deeply regret it. His child is dead because of me. I can’t let this greed that’s taken hold influence my decisions, and I don’t think you should either. When we find Ben, let him decide. There’s no life for him back there, not anymore, but ultimately he has to be the one to make the choice. If he wants to return with you, I won’t get in his way, I promise.”

Adjusting his glasses, Keith shook his head and made his way toward the door without saying a word. I hated using his own words against him, but it felt like the right thing to do. I had to get everyone moving and out the door, time was of the essence and I didn’t want another argument. I would go along with his demands for now and let him think that he has the upper hand. Deep inside, I knew that I was going to fight for Ben. We loved each other, plain and simple and he wouldn’t ever leave me. 

As I started making the way towards the door, I felt a sudden chill move down my spine and a unexplained gust of wind brush past my cheek. Instinctively, I turned around and found myself facing the empty room, with only the discarded chains and fragments of shattered glass laying on the floor. I took a deep breath, and listened for a moment to the sound of the rain hitting the roof overhead. This wasn’t right, I couldn’t let myself become so easily distracted. We were going to Dawn to finish the fight, to put an end to Rhiannon’s sick and twisted plan. No matter what happened, I couldn’t take to hearing and seeing things that weren’t there. It fell on me to make sure that everything worked according to plan. There was a heavy burden on my shoulders and I was ready to bear the full weight of our actions. No more running away or letting my emotions and feelings get the better of me. One way or another, this was going to end, tonight. 

Keith and Thomas were waiting for me in the hall, and as I finally approached the steel doors, I heard a sound from behind me that made me stop dead in my tracks. It was that of a child crying. Slowly turning around, I could see that the room was now completely dark, except for a spotlight in the center of the room. Standing there in the circle of illumination was a little boy. He was dressed in a simple white hospital gown, barefoot and alone. The wisps of his sandy colored hair fell into the deep pools of his amber eyes and I knew with one look, that I was gazing upon Burnley as a child. Our eyes met and I felt the icy coolness of his presence surround me. Reaching down into the bag at my side, I slipped my hand in, searching desperately for the blue teddy bear that I had found. My fingers stretched and pushed through every item that was jammed inside, but I couldn’t feel the soft, plush fur of the toy anywhere inside. Confused, I took my eyes off him for a moment and looked down into the bag, yanking the top open in haste, searching for it, but it simply wasn’t there. I distinctly remember picking it up when Keith and I left the room, in the lower levels. Where was it now? Turning my attention back towards the child, I looked forward and immediately noticed that he had silently moved, or teleported across the room and was now standing right in front of me. Inhaling sharply, I reached out to him with trembling hands. “What do you want?” I asked. 

Keeping his amber eyes on me, I suddenly felt like a rabbit caught in a snare. My heart was pounding furiously and the temperature in the room was making me shiver with icy coolness. Lifting one of his small arms up, he extended his hand towards me. His fingertips just touched mine and then I heard his voice whisper to me. “When the Shepherd arrives, Dawn will become Dark and the World will End. The beast lives there, waiting to consume you too.” Those awful eyes locked onto me and held me fast in his gaze. All that you regret, you have before, you will again.” 

“Dustin…Hey Dustin… are you coming or not?” I blinked and looked around. I was still standing in the same place near the door, but with my back turned. Keith and Thomas were standing at the exit waiting for me. There was no one else around. I looked down at my hand and saw a single red tiny fingerprint on the tip of my finger. Touching my thumb to it, I rubbed it between two fingers and the fine red marks quickly dried up and flaked off, leaving nothing behind. What had I just seen? Thomas made his way back over to me. “Dustin, are you alright?”

This was the second time I had seen Burnley, or at least a form of him. Why was I the only one who was seeing these things? It felt like the time back on earth when I was seeing the vision of the ‘Monster’ who was haunting both my night time and day light hours with horrible hallucinations. Could it be that I was slowly losing my mind all over again? No. It couldn’t be possible. Brock was dead, and yet I was able to see him as clear as day when he wanted me to, surely Burnley could too… but why would that lunatic be reaching out to me? I took a deep breath and nodded to Thomas, moving past him and out into the hallway. I had to get out of this place as soon as possible. It was messing with my head too much. Whatever Burnley wanted, he’d have to find someone else, he didn’t deserve my help. 

Together the three of us made our way through the howling winds and rains back to where we had left the vehicle. Expecting to find it submerged in mud or even toppled over and covered with fallen branches, I was completely shocked to find that the flood waters had knocked it free from where it had become stuck and moved it back onto the path. Finally things were starting to go our way now. We quickly piled inside, with Thomas taking over driving and me sitting next to him. Keith settled in the back, not saying a word as we started our hour to Dawn. I tried to talk to him, but he remained notoriously silent, lost in his own world. I could imagine what he must be going through; I had always had a hint that there was something more than just friendship between him and Ben, but I refuse to believe that it could be anything romantic. Ben was a charismatic, loveable person, and it was easy to fall in love with a person like that, but there was no way that he would become involved with a band member. It would make traveling awkward and uncomfortable. I glanced in the rear view mirror and watched Keith as he rested his head against the window and closed his eyes. There was something in his words and the way that he held himself when talking about Ben that spoke volumes. I silently wondered what was going to happen when they met again, after all these years. 

Lizzie woke up with a start, sitting up in her bed and grabbing the soft blanket that was draped over to her tightly to her chest. Looking around, she could see nothing but a impenetrable darkness around her, closing in a threatening to swallow her whole. Panic started to set in and her pulse started racing. As she threw the blanket off of her, there was a crash of lightning off in the distance, and for a moment she could see that she was in her own private quarters, home in the Shallow Bay. Placing her bare feet on the floor, she moved across the dark room, letting the memory of where each item was guide her through it safely. Finding the switch to the lights, she placed her fingers on it, knowing full well that it probably wasn’t going to work, but still wanting desperately to try. Holding her breath, she flicked it on and immediately the room was filled with a warm, incandescent glow. Sighing in relief, she relaxed for a moment, allowing herself some time to calm down and recall the events of the last few hours. The last memory she had was of the wind and rain, and Benjamin taking her child away. After that, everything was a blur. Feeling numb, Lizzie made her way into the nursery and glanced down at the first crib, feeling frightened. She had lost baby Ben, what was she going to do if she lost Tristan as well? She would be completely devastated. How could she face Thomas when he came back home knowing that she had let one of his children be taken? She cursed herself for not putting up more a fight against Ben. She knew that she should have fought, as any other mother would do, right down to her last breath of life, but instead, she just let him take her son. Never again would she allow this to happen. If he came back, she was going to kill Benjamin, and that was that.

Swallowing back her fear, she approached the crib, placing her hands on the railing and peered down. Tristan was sleeping soundly. “Oh my god, you're alright...thank you… thank you… thank you..” She repeated over and over, slowly sinking down to her knees, sobbing. Half of her life had been taken, but yet, here was the other half, sleeping sweetly, wrapped up in cotton sheets right before her. It was almost too much to bear. Lowering her head, her eyes caught movement and suddenly she jerked her head back up to see someone sitting in the rocking chair near the window. Instinctively, she reached down to where her belt should have been to draw her weapon, but she was shocked to find that she wasn’t wearing her uniform now, but instead a soft satin nightgown. Holding her hands up, she could see that there were ribbons of bandages criss crossing over them in various patterns, covering up lacerations that were still bleeding slightly. Her hair was neatly combed and pulled back into a tight braid, and there was a faint scent of perfume that still hung on her skin. 

The person across the room from her slowly rose to their feet, and Lizzie immediately jumped up and grabbed Tristan, backing away. “I won’t let you take him!” She shouted, clutching the startled baby against her. The person kept moving forward, and she turned on her heel and bolted out of the nursery, the silken layers of her nightgown flapping around her legs. Making her way back out to the living quarters, she headed toward the door and noticed that it was locked. Swearing to herself, she attempted to punch in the key code, but her fingers refused to work, and every time she hit incorrect buttons, it sent the system into failure. In a frenzied state, she kept trying the code, knowing that the person behind her was making their way through the room coming closer and closer, but she refused to turn around. She didn’t want to waste precious moments; she just had to get her son out of there and to safety. Attempting the code several more times, she couldn’t get it right, and in a act of frustration, she slammed her entire hand against it, tears streaming down her eyes and holding onto Tristan with all her might. 

Suddenly there was a light tap on her shoulder, and a soft voice spoke to her. “Lizzie. Hey, it’s okay. Calm down, no one is going to hurt you, turn around please.”

Taking a deep breath, Lizzie turned around, prepared to look into the face of the person who would quite possibly murder her, and was completely taken back. There, standing before her was Thomas’s friend and trusted member of the Shallow Bay, Scott. “Scott! I am so sorry. I thought you were…. I mean….” Stepping forward, she reached to hug him, burying her face against his chest and letting relief wash over her.

Gently patting her on the back, Scott smiled. “It’s alright, hey I’ve got you.” Holding her in his arms, he did his best to reassure her and make her feel as though she was safe again. Eventually, she let go of him and started to wipe the tears away from her eyes with the corner of her sleeve, turning her back towards him, obviously embarrassed by showing weakness. There was awkward silence between them, and he knew that he had to do something to make her feel better. “You are probably really dehydrated and starving. I am going to run down the hall to the cafeteria and grab you some food and a nice cold glass of ice water, or maybe a cup of tea. Why don’t you put Tristan back to bed and get yourself settled and when I come back we can talk?” Moving away from him, Lizzie took Tristan back towards the nursery without answering him. Scott smiled at her anyway. “Okay I will be right back. Don’t worry I won’t be far.” Quickly he left, and Lizzie breathed a sigh of relief as she heard the door slide shut behind him.

Choosing not to put her son back down for a nap, Lizzie shuffled over to the rocking chair near the window and sat down with Tristan resting against her chest. On bright, sunny mornings, she loved to come and sit here and watch the boys sleep. It was the most beautiful thing in the world. Sometimes, Thomas would pop in and sit down on the floor next to her, resting his head in her lap, and she would run her fingers through the dark, curly locks of his hair. She loved to hear him tell fairy tale stories that Selene once had told him, especially the one about the girl who fell down the rabbit hole. The curtains would gently sway in the breeze. The warm summer air would carry with it the notes of a melody which was played on Benjamin's guitar far below in the meadow. Looking outside, now all she could see was wind and rain, torrential downpours that pounded against the thin glass relentlessly. The songs which Benjamin once played before which filled her heart with joy and life now made her feel alone and empty. She trusted him with everything, they all trusted him, never thinking that he would ever betray them, but in the end, he was just like everyone else, a liar. She hated him for taking her child away, she hated him for murdering all those innocent men in the Shallow Bay, but most importantly, she hated herself for trusting him. 

Lizzie’s thoughts were interrupted when the door slid back open and Scott returned with a steaming hot cup of tea for her and some sandwiches. Positioning a small table in front of her, he awkwardly set down the cup and plate near so that she could reach it, and then retrieved a chair from the living room to sit across from her. Looking down at the plate in front of him, Scott frowned, noticing that the peanut butter and jelly sandwich was dreadfully dis-proportioned. The ratio of peanut butter to jelly was painfully off and he had overfilled it, which lead to it oozing out the sides and all over the plate. Reaching forward, he tried his best to wipe it clean with a napkin but ended up making it worse by smearing it all over his hands. Cursing quietly, he brought his jelly covered fingers up to his mouth in an attempt to lick them off, but a blob of the fruity concoction slipped off and fell into his beard. The silence was broken with a giggle by Lizzie, who couldn’t contain her amusement. Scott looked over at her, shocked. “I am sorry. I am just making things worse, aren’t I?” He asked guiltily. 

Shaking her head, she managed to smile at him. “It’s alright. I am not hungry anyway.”

“I really think you should eat something—“ Scott said with a serious tone. “You lost a lot of blood with all those cuts and laceration on your hands and feet. You need to regain your strength.”

Looking away from him and out to the window, Lizzie muttered. “I don’t care about myself, I just want my baby back.”

Scott crinkled up the napkin in his fingers and balled it up in the palm of his hand. “I know I am going to be out of line talking like this, but quite frankly Lizzie, I think that’s the most pathetic thing I’ve ever heard you say.” Turning her head sharply, Lizzie glared at him, astonished by his words and started to say something, but he quickly cut her off. “Look at everything that you’ve been through, you were one of the first people to ever escape the FEC. You helped Thomas to set up Eden, and established a great medical facility there with Dr. Weis. Even when they captured you again and tried to use you against the Messengers, you pulled through it all. How did you do this? You did it because you HAD to do it. Failure meant death, so you pushed on, through all the insurmountable odds and fought with everything that you had inside of you.”

“I don’t have that anymore. All that strength, everything I have is gone.” Lizzie felt tears building up in her eyes again and tried to blink them away. “Benjamin….he took it all away from me. I feel so empty. Hollow inside. I can’t face Thomas like this… I just can’t do it.”

Sitting back in his chair, Scott took a deep breath. “I have this friend back home, and he’s the nicest guy that you would ever want to meet, but he’s quiet, withdrawn, and shy. He wanted to be a musician so badly, but he was terrified about putting himself out there for others to judge. I kept telling him over and over that he was good, but you know how that goes…someone gives you a compliment like that and instantly your head turns it over and inadvertently you start thinking that it’s something negative. Well anyway, he wouldn’t listen to me, and he kept himself cooped up in his home, playing music day after day for the same four walls, never sharing his stuff or letting anyone hear it, fearing failure. We didn’t live close to one another and we would only communicate through phone calls, Skype, etc. Every damn day when I talked to him, he would play me something new he wrote, and I absolutely fell in love with it, but I was the only one allowed to hear it. Then one day, something happened. There was an accident.” Scott’s voice dropped and took on a darker, more morose tone. “I was severely injured and in a coma for quite some time. When I woke up, I was shocked to see my friend at my bed side. He hadn’t heard from me and came to find out what was going on. I didn’t have any friends or family here at all, so he decided to stay with me. He got a hotel room near the hospital and stayed at my bed side every hour that he could. During this time, he brought his guitar and notebook with him and he wrote music to keep his mind occupied. I remember leafing through the lyrics and being completely amazed at this guys talent. It was unbelievable. Eventually I got better and he started getting ready to go back home. Before I said goodbye to him at the airport, he pulled that notebook out and handed it to me. When I asked why he was giving this to me, he said that he wanted me to take these songs and publish them. I was taken back, because he never wanted anyone to hear his stuff before. So I pressed him as to what changed his mind.” Sitting forward in his seat, Scott reached across the table and took Lizzie’s hand into his, holding onto it tightly. “He told me that seeing me, meeting me, triggered something in him that gave him the confidence that he needed. It was a sudden jump start to his heart that gave him what he needed to move on and find his own destiny. I was pretty confused by all of this but I accepted it at the time, but as we moved into the airport and closer to the terminal gate, it started eating away at me and I asked him to explain what he meant. I remember that it was the last call for his flight and he had to go when he took hold of my hand and held it in his, like this… and he said that he had fallen in love with me, and that is what gave him the strength that he needed.”

Lizzie tried to slip her had out of his grasp, but he held it tightly. “That’s just music Scott, this is different.” She whispered.

“No. It’s the same thing; it’s the same paralyzing fear that stops you from doing something that you know has to be done. In his case, he was afraid of failing, but once he knew that he had something that he could hold on to, no matter what happened, then he suddenly wasn’t afraid anymore. You are exactly the same way, you know that you have to stand up and be strong, not only for yourself, or your children, or even Thomas, but for The Shallow Bay and all the good people that are counting on you. You are afraid that they will see you now as weak, a failure, and they will lose respect for you if you fail again. It’s this fear that is keeping you from being out there right now and leading them in the direction that they have to go. They are lost, confused, and in need of someone to stand up for them. They need someone like you to reassure them that everything is going to be alright.” He hesitated for a moment, noticing the still emotionless look on Lizzie’s face. “You still love Thomas, don’t you? And what about your children, you still love Ben and Tristan?”

Her eyes fell on him with a astonished look. “Of course I do! I am a mother, and wife. I won’t ever stop loving my husband or my children.”

Scott finally let go of her hand. “Then use that love to make you stronger. Don’t just sit here and feel sorry for yourself. Go find Benjamin, find out where he has taken your son and get him back.” 

Looking down at the sleeping baby in her arms, Lizzie was overcome with emotion. It would be so easy just to bring him in the bed with her, curl her body around him protectively and go to sleep. She could wait for the terrible storm to pass and morning to come, and then run into Thomas’s arms and let him deal with everything, so that she wouldn’t have to. He had become a great leader and everyone in the Shallow Bay loved him, he would know exactly what to do. “Scott, would you please leave us alone for a while?” Frowning, Scott got up from his chair, bumping into the table that he had placed between them, nearly knocking it over and spilling her tea. Cursing underneath his breath, he grabbed a napkin and moved to wipe it up when Lizzie stopped him. “No. Leave it.” He looked at her curiously. “Please, just go.” She turned her head to avoid his gaze, staring at the storm outside, she couldn’t stand to see the look of hurt in his eyes. He stood motionless, holding the napkin tightly in his clumsy hands. “That’s an order. Get out of my quarters.”

Shocked and hurt, Scott threw the napkin down on the table and hurried out to the door as quickly as he could. Hearing it slide shut behind him, Lizzie breathed a sigh of relief and gazed down at the sleeping child in her arms. He hardly fussed or cried at all, and seemed be able to sense when she was upset, he was her perfect child. She vowed to watch over him for as long as there was breath in her body. A wave of dizziness came over her, and Lizzie felt very tired and exhausted suddenly. She didn’t know how much time had passed between baby Ben being taken and her blackout, but she was completely drain and lightheaded. Scott was right, she was hungry, but the thought of food just made her more ill. Closing her eyes for a moment, she leaned back into the rocking chair, taking comfort in the warmth of her child resting against her chest and fell asleep. 

“Lizzie.” A voice was calling her. A familiar voice. Slowly she opened her eyes and saw Brock sitting across from her. She wasn’t surprised, shocked or confused. Seeing him there was a welcome sight. 

“Brock, I’ve missed you.” She said to him, smiling. “Please tell me that you are coming home soon.”

“I’d like to, I really would.” He took a deep breath and looked around the room. “Of all places, the Shallow Bay was where I truly felt like I was part of something. I wasn’t alone, or lost and ‘wondering’, I had exactly what I wanted, even if it was just for a short time, and I was home. I truly wish that I could come back here, but I can’t…” His voice fell to almost an inaudible whisper, so low that Lizzie couldn’t ever hear it. “….none of them will make it back….” 

Feeling a slight chill in the air, Lizzie pulled a blanket down off the back of her chair and wrapped it around Tristan. The storm outside seemed to ease up a bit, but for some odd reason the dampness had seeped into the room, making it uncomfortable. “I am sorry, what did you say, Brock?” She asked curiously.

Standing up from the chair, he waved his hand at her. “Its nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

Sensing a change in him, Lizzie stood up as well and placed her son down into the crib. “Brock, why are you here with me?”

“It’s about Benjamin.” Brock’s soft brown eyes looked at her and suddenly she felt afraid. “You know what he has become.”

She lowered her head, letting her hair fall in front of her face. A stupid, childish habit, that Thomas hated. “Yes. I do.

Brock walked over to her, and the coldness in the air seemed to follow him. For the first time, Lizzie could see the deep, dark circles underneath his eyes, and his pale, almost translucent skin that stretched out over his bones. It was almost as if she was looking at a corpse. “He’s heading to Dawn, and now so are the others. You can’t let him find them.. Dustin, Thomas, and anyone else who gets in his way of getting to Rhiannon, they are all expendable to him now. I… I can’t do it, they are too far away from me now, and I am too weak.”

Lizzie let out an amused laugh. “Stop Benjamin? No Brock, that’s not something I can do. I tried to talk sense into him, I threatened him, I tried to shoot him, but nothing worked. Don’t you think that I would have done everything that I could have to prevent him from taking my child? What makes you think that I can stop him now? Especially since he’s killed all of those men?” Resting her hands on the edge of the crib, she looked down at Tristan. “I am not going anywhere. I am staying out of it. I have something here to protect.”

“There won’t be anything left to protect if Rhiannon gets that child! Don’t you see that storm out there? It’s not natural; it’s a side effect of her messing with alternate realities. She’s ripping the world apart by drawing power from other ones all in an effort to bring Burnley back.” Brock joined Lizzie in front of Tristan’s crib and spoke with a soft tone. “Lizzie, Ben now has the power to defeat Rhiannon, he’s so incredibly powerful now, I am not sure that anyone really can stop him. I have a feeling that he’s going to succeed. Thomas and Dustin, they are caught smack dab in the middle of it. Benjamin is the Shepherd of the Damned now, which means that he WILL kill them if they get in his way. Are you prepared to lose your husband now as well as one of your sons?”

Gripping the wooden rail, Lizzie’s knuckles turned white. “I don’t want to lose anyone else, Brock!”

“Then help me. Please.” 

Lizzie sniffled, holding back the tears once again. She had been crying far too much in the last few days. “You still love Dustin, don’t you Brock?”

Taking a few steps away from her, Brock looked to the untouched sandwich on the table with the spilled cup of tea. “Part of my heart will always be with him, I gave it to him, and he shattered it. Those pieces are still there, buried deep inside, unable to be retrieved without causing extreme amounts of pain. I am tired of picking away at layers of flesh, trying to draw blood that won’t shed. I can’t hurt him anymore. He’s moved on, and I have too.”

Her heart feeling like it was about to burst, Lizzie left the crib and reached up to put a hand on Brock’s shoulder, but as soon as she moved near her, he stepped away, avoiding her touch. Sighing to herself, she took another look back at her son and then back to Brock again, feeling as though she was torn in two. Her eyes then went to a photo on the wall, a sketch that she had drawn based on Thomas’s rabbit story. It was of a little girl, sitting at a table with a variety of crazy characters having a early morning cup of tea. Below it was written ‘I like to believe in 5 impossible things before breakfast’. For the first time, Lizzie finally understood what those impossible things were. They weren’t physical items, or insane adventures, but instead, they were the people gathered around the table, her friends. The little girl believed in her friends over anything else and that is what kept her going, even when times were bad. “What must I do?” She whispered.

Brock headed for the door. “Follow me.” Silently, Lizzie followed him to the door and as the exited, she was startled to see Scott standing outside, leaning against the wall. Upon seeing Brock, he immediately drew his weapon and took aim. 

“No!” Lizzie shouted and moved to stand in front of Brock. Stretching her arms out, she remembered that this wasn’t really Brock, it was just his spirit, and yet it was her instinct to save him, even if it meant injury to herself. She pushed down on Scott’s arm. “It’s alright, he’s with me.” She said, trying to diffuse the situation.

Narrowing his eyes, Scott sheathed his weapon, but kept his eyes set upon Brock. “Isn’t he supposed to be dead? How the hell did he get in there? Lizzie I don’t understand what’s going on.” Lizzie noticed the hairs standing up on his arms and he started to shiver from the same coldness that she was suffering from.

“I have everything under control, Scott, but I need your help.” She snapped her fingers, trying to get his attention away from Brock. “Hey, are you in there?”

“Huh, oh yeah, what do you need?”

Gently, Lizzie took hold of Scott’s hands and immediately noticed how cold they were. “I have to help Brock with something, but I don’t want to leave Tristan alone. I need someone that I trust to look after him, there’s no one else in this base that I would ask this favor for, except you. I am sorry to place this burden on you, but I have no one to turn to. Thomas trusted you, and I know that he was right to do so. Please Scott, can you look after my son until I return? It won’t be long.”

Looking at Brock suspiciously, Scott reluctantly agreed. “Thomas asked me to look after you and that’s what I am going to do, but can you please tell me where you are going?” He shifted from one foot to another nervously. “I mean…you don’t have to tell me, but I’d like to know, to check up on you or if something happens to you, I will know where to find you.”

Smiling, Lizzie reached up and put a hand on both sides of Scott’s face, feeling his scruffy beard underneath the palms of her hands. Somehow it reminded her of Benjamin. She stared right into his eyes. “Nothing will happen to me, I am with Brock. He’s a dear friend of mine; he’d never do anything to hurt me. Believe me.” Pulling away from him, she gave Scott a quick kiss on the cheek and noticed the bright red color that his face turned almost immediately. Returning to Brock’s side, she took a deep breath and pointed toward the door to her quarters. “Watch after my son, Scott. I trust you.”

“I’ll protect him with my life.” He said, but Lizzie didn’t hear it, she was already walking down the hall, following Brock. Sighing to himself, Scott went into Lizzie’s room and made his way to the nursery. Ever since he arrived on Prox, he had been missing Travis, and been incredibly down and depressed over the absence of his friend. The Shallow Bay was a good place, full of good, kind hearted people, but none of them came remotely close to giving him the distraction that he needed to keep his mind off him. Except for one. Lizzie. She was something special. 

Peeking into the room, Scott saw that Tristan was now awake and making cooing noises in his crib, totally entertained by the flying rocket ships that were hanging down from thin strings attached to the ceiling, which were put there by Dustin weeks before the boys were born. Deciding that it would be a good idea to sit with the child to keep a more watchful eye on him, Scott took his place in Lizzie’s rocking chair and started to make himself comfortable when he noticed something in the crib adjacent to Tristan’s. Supposedly empty, he could see a dark shape lurking underneath the soft baby blankets. Cautiously, he approached the crib while the wind outside whipped madly against the windows, shaking them slightly and creating a eerie groaning noise. Bending over, he stretched and reached his trembling hand out, grabbing hold of the soft folds of fabric and giving them a quick yank. There was a brilliant explosion of lightning behind him, harshly illuminating the room for a brief instant and exposing the shape of a child’s light blue teddy bear sitting in the middle of the crib. 

Brock led Lizzie to the communication room. Upon entering, the soldier on duty was surprised at their entrance and was on his feet in an instant. “Mrs. Bell! I wasn’t expecting your visit so soon, the rest of the men said that you were….” The man stopped and looked at Brock, going instantly pale. 

“They said that I was what?” Lizzie asked, sharply.

Brock moved forward to the control panel where the line of monitors displayed nothing but static. The man immediately ducked to the side, moving as far away from him as he could. “Uh…that you were… just…ah… not feeling well… is all…Scott’s been kinda telling us what to do after… Commander Benjamin went on the killing spree through the base…we didn’t know what to do with the bodies, and how to clean up the mess…they said that you weren’t gonna help us…”

Pulling his attention away from the monitors for a moment, Brock turned and looked at the nervous man, glaring at him and he stopped talking. “Have you been able to reach Thomas and Dustin at all? Is there any signal from the transmitter that Ben gave to them?”

Shaking his head, the young man made his way to the door, giving Lizzie and Brock as much room as he could. “No. The storm has knocked out all forms of communication that we have from them. The last ping we picked up, they were heading to the old messenger base, Eden, but from there the signal went dead. The severe winds damaged some of our satellites on the roof of the base and until it stops, we can’t get up there to fix them, I am afraid.”

Lizzie smiled at the man. “Alright, thank you. You can go now. Brock and I will take it from here. Please return to your quarters until you are summoned again.” Grateful for his discharge the man pulled the door open and before he could take his leave, Lizzie called to him again. “And please, if you would, don’t mention to anyone that you have seen Brock here. It’s best not to upset the rest of the base, especially with the incident with Benjamin, and the storm getting worse. The people need to remain calm.” Nodding, the man turned and headed out, slamming the door after him.

Hitting a few keys on the keyboard, Brock stared at the static filled monitors. “You sounded like a true commander there, Lizzie.”

Lizzie’s eyes widened as she came to stand next to him. “What? I do? Me? That’s strange, I just gave him orders, nothing more.”

“It’s not merely giving people orders that is what makes a good leader, it’s the tone in your voice, the look in your eyes and the compassion in your heart. If you can find a way to have all of those, then you have what it takes to be loved and truly respected by your men.” Brock said gently. “Thomas is a great man, and he does well now as leader here, but I am sure that there will be more times when you are asked to step in and take over for him. You can’t depend on him always being here and making things right. Sometimes you have to take care of yourself.”

“I understand.” Lizzie muttered. “I didn’t need anyone before; I was able to handle things on my own, but now…”

“Love has a way of doing that to you.” Brock said quietly, running his fingers over the keyboard. 

Staring at the screen, Lizzie took a deep breath, letting the air into her lungs. No matter what happened, things were going to be different now, she could feel it. “Brock, why are we here? If the communication array is down, we can’t contact them.”

Brock kept his eyes focused on the monitors. “Lizzie. Lock the door.”

Her eyes widened and she looked at him curiously, unsure if what she heard was correct. “What did you say?”

“Just please go make sure the lock on the door is activated, and no one can get in from outside.” 

A little frightened by the tone in his voice, Lizzie went over to the door and punched in the number to the lock that would seal the door shut from the inside, preventing all access from the other side. The only way out would be if she physically keyed in the code herself. Beginning to feel nervous and anxious, she made her way back to Brock’s side. He had pulled the chair all the way up to the panel and was fixated on the controls before him. “Brock, please explain to me what we are doing here?”

Taking a moment to look at the lines of scars that ran down his hand which was resting on the keyboard, Brock answered her in a low, sullen tone. “The signal that transmits to Dustin and Thomas is down, crippled by the storm, that is correct, however there is a way to contact them. No matter how you look at it, all messages, signals, etc are just electronic impulses which are sent over distances by energy. When the devices that send these go down, there’s nothing to create and send them or at least that’s what you would think. But there is a way…” He stopped and looked up at her. “Lizzie, I don’t know for sure what is going to happen when I do this, but you have to be ready for anything.”

“Brock, you’re scaring me now.”

Brock smiled at her, but Lizzie didn’t like it. This wasn’t Brock’s usual open, honest smile. This was one that was unsure and afraid, just like she was, he was trying his best to be brave. “When I died, my soul became trapped here, unable to move on, and I discovered Rhiannon’s plot to bring back Burnley. Every time I tried to move against her, she would stop me, her power is fed directly from one of those new visors that the FEC has on her physical body. I tried to warn Benjamin, but he wouldn’t listen. Every time that I came to him in a dream, or take form like I am here with you now, I start to lose more of the energy that I have. Somehow that energy is what is stopping Rhiannon from being completely free. I don’t know how, or why, but I am tied to her. She’s been torturing me for months now, trying to break me down, and I don’t know how much longer I can hold out.” Turning to face her, Lizzie could see the look of sorrow on Brock’s face. “Thomas and Dustin are in danger. They need to be warned about what Benjamin has become, before they make it to Dawn. If they blindly stumble in on him and try to stop him, no one will be coming out of that place alive. We need to get a message to them, before it’s too late.”

Lizzie put her hand over her mouth. “No! Brock, you can’t do that! You said that your spirit is what is keeping Rhiannon locked up, if you use your energy to send this signal, it will weaken you even more! I won’t let you do this! I can’t!”

“Time is running out, we have to do this. I tried to contact them myself, I was able to see them in Eden, but they are gone from there now, and moved to far away. I am too weak to reach them, but I can boost the signal with this transmission device. I can power it up and give you a few minutes to speak to them directly.” Brock’s fingers started moving over the keyboard again, and lines of coding and information started to fly up the screens. “I don’t know how long you will have, so you need to make it fast, before it drains me. Do you understand?” He paused for a moment to push a head set over to her, then went back to typing.

Gingerly, Lizzie picked up the headset and held it in her hands. The weight was tremendous. “If you use up all your energy, your spirit will die. I don’t want to see you go again.”

Taking his hands off the keyboard, Brock leaned forward in his chair. Lizzie thought that for a moment he was going to hold onto her hands, but he didn’t. Instead, he neatly folded them and placed them in his lap. She noticed how the fingers on his right hand were slightly crooked, and disfigured. “I am already dead. I died a year ago. I think that my spirit refused to move on because of the ties that I had here on Prox.”

“Dustin?” Lizzie whispered. Brock smiled at her again and this time there was something behind those upturned lips. It was sadness, but sadness laced with something else, love. Her small fingers dug deeply into the leather headband of the headset. “No, not Dustin...Burnley.” She whispered. 

“She took his spirit away and locked it up after his death. It was the first thing I felt when I woke up, this terrifying darkness surrounding me, and a maddening pain that grew stronger with each passing moment. I saw such horrific things pass over me, visions and hallucinations of creatures that gnawed at my very being, gnashing their charcoal teeth against my bones. I wanted to scream, to cry out in pain, but the moment I opened my mouth I was overcome with a slicing pain in my throat as the infestation of insects ran out and covered my body, slowly chewing away at my flesh. Then I realized that these weren’t my dreams, they were Burnley’s, forced upon him by his own mother in an effort to keep him subdued and pacified until her plan was complete.” Turning his attention back toward the screen, Brock focused his eyes on the blinking cursor. “He’s not the person you think he is, Lizzie. He’s been bent and twisted by the FEC for over twenty years and never shown one single ounce of love or compassion. The man that died there in my arms was the real Burnley; the innocent soul that was desperate to be set free, but buried under layers of hate and anger. I looked into his eyes and knew that I had to be the one to save him, because he saved me from myself.”

Choking back her own tears, Lizzie reached up to push her hair away from her face and noticed that she was no longer wearing her wedding ring, and a wave of guilt overcame her. Her first reaction was to run out and find it, to put it back where it should be, but she knew that was impossible, she had to stay with Brock. She knelt down by the side of Brock’s chair and rested her head on the arm rest, her hair spilling down over the edge. “Please. Stay with us. We can find a way to bring you back.” 

“I don’t want to come back. I want to be with him, so I am going to try to do whatever I can, to stop Rhiannon and set his soul free. If I lose myself and fade away in the process, then I will be okay with that, because a life without him is a life that I do not want.” Reaching out, Brock brought his hand near her head, almost touching the soft layers of her hair, but pulled it back at the last moment. “Do you understand now, Lizzie?”

Sniffling, Lizzie nodded and stood back up. As much as she hated the of thought Brock being in love with the man who raped her, Lizzie had to accept it. Brock was like a brother to her, and always put others before him. Now this was his chance to get something back, something just for himself, and there was nothing that she could do to stop him. She didn’t want to let him go, but death was supposed to be the end of things, letting the person move on and keeping good memories of them. Brock would never find his happiness if he remained as a spirit on Prox, not without Burnley or Dustin. Taking a long breath, she let it fill her lungs and then stood next to the control panel, slipping the headphones on and moving the microphone in front of her mouth. “Just tell me what I have to do.”

Pointing to the monitor in front of him, Brock tapped on the cursor. When that displays the word ‘connected’ you will have a direct line to the receiver in the vehicle that the others are traveling in. I don’t know how far out they are, or how long you will have to speak to them, but try to be quick, don’t go into any needless detail, just warn them. Got it?”

Lizzie nodded and wrapped the twisting cord of the headset around in her fingers. “Let’s do this.” 

Taking a deep breath, Brock spread his hands out over the console, closing his eyes and lowering his head a bit. Lizzie stood by, listening to nothing but static in her head, broadcast over the speakers, desperately waiting for the line on the screen to change. For several moments, nothing happened, and she considered reaching over to see if Brock was okay. He was motionless and barely breathing. There was a quiet buzzing noise in the room, followed by a deep humming as the control panel in front of her lit up all at once. The lights overhead started to flicker on and off, and she clutched at the plastic cord with shaking hands. Then suddenly she heard a series of beeps over the speakers and the display on the monitor displayed the word ‘connected’. Her voice shaking, Lizzie called out over the microphone. “Hello, Thomas…Dustin are you there? Can you hear me? This is the Shallow Bay, are you receiving?” Time passed and there was no response. She looked over to Brock, who was still as a statue, his eyes remaining closed. “Brock…no one answered, what do I do?”

Biting down on his bottom lip, he struggled to catch his breath; he was in obvious pain. “Keep trying. Keep calling for them… don’t stop until they answer you.”

Whimpering Lizzie paced back and forth across the room, repeating the same phrase over and over. There was still no response. It was dead air. Frustrated, she took the headphones off and threw them onto the floor. “This isn’t working!” 

Looking down at Brock, she saw him open his eyes slightly and lean his head back against the chair. Still keeping his hands out on the console, she could now see the veins that ran underneath his translucent white skin flowing with a strange purplish energy, which flowed through him like a river. His parched lips cracked as he parted them and whispered. “Don’t….stop.” A thin trickle of blood began to seep out of his nose and Lizzie shook her head.

“No! This is killing you. It’s not working, just stop, please Brock.”

“Lizzie…. I am already….dead.” Letting out a loud scream, Brock channeled an immense amount of energy into the console all at once, and suddenly the room went dark. Standing motionless, unsure of what to do, Lizzie glanced at the monitor in front of her which was the only source of light in the room. It still read ‘connected’. Then she heard a very faint voice coming from the headset on the floor. Dropping down to her knees, she put it on, trying to get her tangled hair out of the way.

“Hello…Who is transmitting on this frequency? Who am I speaking to?” 

Lizzie’s heart jumped out of her chest. It was Thomas. “Ah.. hello! Thomas, it’s me, Lizzie. Can you hear me? Are we connected?”

“Yes but barely, the signal is very weak and keeps cutting in and out. We lost contact with you hours ago. What is going on back there? Is the Shallow Bay alright? Is everyone safe?” Thomas replied. Lizzie felt a sense of relief wash over her. It was so good to hear his voice again. She didn’t know how to respond to him, she wanted to tell him about Benjamin taking the baby away, and all the death that he caused, but she remembered Brock’s warning about going into detail and keeping the message short. Every second that she stayed connected to Thomas, the line got worse and worse, taken over by a loud static.

“Thomas, listen to me. I don’t have much time to warn you. You are heading to Dawn, and so is Benjamin, but you need to stay away from him, he’s dangerous. Do you hear me?” Lizzie stopped, waiting for a response from Thomas. Nothing but static hung on the line.

Then Thomas's voice broke the silence again, this time sounding stressed out and worried over the background noise. “Repeat that. I couldn’t hear you Lizzie. Dawn? Benjamin?” 

Getting frustrated, Lizzie wanted to scream. “STAY AWAY FROM BENJAMIN, THOMAS.” She shouted at the top of her lungs. “HE’S DANGEROUS. HE TOOK BABY BEN AND KILLED SEVERAL OF OUR MEN, HE’S GOING AFTER RHIANNON NEXT, DO NOT GET IN HIS WAY, HE’S COMPLETELY INSANE.”

Sitting in the chair next to her, Brock suddenly began to scream a blood curdling, painful scream that echoed loudly in the small room. Not able to withstand his torment and agony any longer, Lizzie took off the headset, and moved around in front of Brock, putting her hands on his shoulders. The moment her fingertips touched him, they instantly went numb with coldness, and she could see ice crystals start to form on her wrists, slowly creeping up her arms. The ice seemed to penetrate her veins and seep into her body, freezing her right down to the core. Gathering all the strength in her small body, she pushed Brock and the chair he was sitting on back away from the console towards the door. The moment his fingertips left the control panel, the entire room went black and silent. “Oh shit. What have I done?” She whispered. Rubbing her frost bitten hands against the sides of her hips to get some feeling back into them, Lizzie noticed that the room was now much warmer than it had been since they entered. She reached out, searching for Brock to shake him and wake him back up. “Brock… Brock.. hey… where are you?” Her fingers unexpectedly brushed the leather on the back of the chair he was sitting on. Brock was gone. Terror overcame her and she stumbled backwards, her feet tripping over the discarded headset. Falling against the control panel, she clutched at it like it was her lifeline, not knowing what to do. 

Then all at once, the emergency lights came on as the base’s generator roared to life. The room was bathed in an eerie red glow and Lizzie found herself staring face to face with Rhiannon Burnley. 

Rhiannon smiled, and Lizzie screamed.

“ST.. AWAY.. BE.., THO... DANGER…. BABY…EN..KILL…MEN, H.. RHIA.. T, DO NOT …..HIS… COMP… INSANE.” Thomas slammed his fist against the receiver in the dashboard of the vehicle. The rain poured down over the windows, as the wipers moved back and forth in rapid succession to try and keep their view clear. “Damn it, I can’t keep the signal from the Shallow Bay stable.” He said trying to fiddle with the settings on the console and driving at the same time. 

“Here let me see if I can help while you keep an eye on what’s in front of us, I don’t want to get stuck out here again.” I said, trying my best to keep him calm. Ever since we had picked up the very first faint signal from the Shallow Bay, Thomas had been on edge, driving like a mad man and desperately trying to make sense of what Lizzie was saying to him. There was obvious panic in her voice and the more she said, the worse it got, which only added to Thomas’s anxiousness. Pushing his hands out of the way, I tried to realign the signal, but it was no use, we had lost it, and after doing a full scan of the area, there was no sign at all of anything emanating from the base. They went dark. “I am sorry Thomas; I think the signal is gone for good this time. Maybe after we get to Dawn we can boost it and try again.”

Keeping his eyes on the path in front of him, I could see that Thomas as incredibly upset. “Something’s going on back home, you heard the same thing that I did, I heard the words danger, and baby which means that Lizzie and the boys are in trouble. I think we should just turn around and go back there. This plan to stop Rhiannon isn’t going anywhere anyway, we can follow through with it after we regroup back at the Shallow Bay. I need to make sure my boys are okay.”

I didn’t like his idea one bit and I had to let him know in the most subtle way possible. I knew that if he flew off the handle, there might be a chance of him doing something drastic. I had to keep control of the situation or else people were going to get hurt. “You’re wrong, we need to keep going to Dawn. That message was broken up, barely audible, and I am not even sure what I heard. Thomas, look at the storm ahead of us, it keeps getting worse and worse, which means Rhiannon is really fucking shit up somewhere. Prox is going to be torn apart if we don’t hurry up and stop her. We need to keep going in the direction that we are heading. The sooner we take care of things at Dawn, the sooner you can get home to your family.”

Gripping the steering wheel, Thomas’s knuckles were white. “I’ve got people back there who need me, Dustin. I am responsible for each and every one of those men and women in that base. I left Benjamin in charge because I was sure that he could take care of things, but where is he? Aren’t you the slightest bit worried about what happened to him? Did you hear the desperation in Lizzie’s voice? Something big is going on there and I am going back, fuck going to Dawn.” Slamming his foot on the brakes, Thomas brought the vehicle to a stop and spun the steering wheel around with a frenzied force.

“Thomas no! The Shallow Bay is at least a day’s drive from here, we are so close to Dawn now, this is ridiculous!” I shouted at him over the revving motor. “Turn around, NOW!” I demanded. 

Laughing at me, Thomas shook his head. “Or else what, Dustin? You aren’t going to stop me. We’re going to go back to the Shallow Bay. This was a fool’s mission anyway. I am the leader here, not you, so just shut up and enjoy the scenery. When we get back you can go whine and bitch to Benjamin about it.”

I was about to say something else in protest, when suddenly there was the low humming sound in the space between us and then I saw Keith lean forward, his laser pistol shoved into the back of Thomas’s head. “Turn around. Now.”

Taking his foot off the accelerator, Thomas brought the vehicle to a stop. The tension between the two men was thick and ripe. Slowly Thomas raised his hands. “Listen Keith you’re not from Prox, I get it. But it’s common courtesy not to draw a weapon on a man unless you’re planning on using it, so can we just cut the shit right now and continue on our way?”

Keith leaned up against the back of the seat shoving the barrel of the gun harder into Thomas’s skull. “I don’t know you Thomas, so I am not going to even pretend to be your friend. I want you to slowly get out of the vehicle and walk away from it. Consider yourself lucky that I am giving you the chance to survive out there in the storm instead of just killing you now. Dustin and I are going to go on to Dawn without you. Got it?”

“Like hell you are. I have FAMILY back there in the Shallow Bay and they come first. You are an outsider here, there’s nothing for you at Dawn anyway. You are just following along in hopes that Dustin will show you were Benjamin is.” Thomas glanced over to me, his dark eyes searching for help. It was a confusing situation; I wanted to go back to the Shallow Bay and see Ben, and make sure that Lizzie and the children were okay, but that would mean that Ben would get involved, and I couldn’t let that happen. But on the other hand, if we proceeded onwards to Dawn, we could end it all quickly and everyone would be safe. 

Reaching forward, Keith grabbed hold of a handful of Thomas’s curly hair and yanked his head back. Thomas yelled out in pain. “I have a friend there who is as important to me as your family is to you. I don’t mind going back to your base, but not until I get Shaun back. So if you’re not with me, then you’re against me and you are going to have to go.” He flicked a switch and kicked the weapon into firing mode. I heard it power up and was terrified that Keith was going to kill Thomas. “Now get out of the vehicle and walk away, or else you won’t live to see your family again.”

Once again, Thomas looked over at me. “Dustin, he’s your friend, talk some sense into him!”

I shook my head. “No. He’s right. We do need to go to Dawn. We can’t tell what Lizzie’s message was about, what if it was a warning not to come back to the Shallow Bay? We don’t know anything for certain, so until we do, I think we should stick to the plan.”

“Fuck you too, Dustin. I should have known better than to expect you for help. You selfish little prick. I’ve had enough of you. When we get back to the Shallow Bay, I want you and Benjamin gone. I want you both to stay out of our lives. Take all your drama and your ghosts with you. I have a life to live and I don’t want the two of you screwing it up or putting my family in danger. Got that?”

My hands clenched into fists. It was so hard to contain my anger. This was the Thomas that I first met, the one who made rash decisions and never thought about his actions beforehand. I knew that he was stressed out and worried, but this was too much. Silently I wondered if that visor had any lasting effects on him. Glancing back to Keith, I was getting ready to say something, when I noticed a slight movement from him. I tried to unlatch my safety belt, and move between them, but I fumbled with it and I was too late. Keith slid forward, and turned the weapon around, pummeling Thomas in the back of the head with the blunt handle. I saw Thomas glance at me before his eyes rolled back in his head and his body slumped forward, knocked unconscious by the force of the blow. I turned to Keith. “What the hell did you do that for?”

Keith had the door open already and was pulling Thomas out into the rain. “He wasn’t going to listen to reason, Dustin, you can tell that by the tone in his voice.” He grabbed handfuls of Thomas’s shirt and started to yank, trying his best to move his larger body out of the way. “I did what I did because we need to get moving. If Rhiannon is as dangerous as you say she is, then Shaun is in danger and I need to get to him quickly.”

Thomas fell out of the driver’s seat and down into the muddy ground with a loud plop. I opened my door and stepped out, letting the icy cold rain lash against my skin and sting my eyes. By the time I rounded the vehicle, Keith had already pulled him off the path and was heading back to the driver’s seat. I moved in front of him, preventing him from getting in. “I don’t approve of what you did, but it’s too late to argue about it. We need to get to Dawn, but I am not letting you leave him here, not like this. You don’t know how dangerous Prox is. If you leave him out in this storm, he will be dead by morning.”

Keith shrugged. “I don’t know him. He’s not my concern.” Trying to get around me and failing, he put his hands on his hips in frustration. “What?”

“Benjamin means a lot to you, Keith. It’s obvious every time you guys are on stage together, there’s some chemistry between the two of you. He’s such a wonderful, caring person that you just cannot help falling in love with. Do you remember who you were before Ben took you in? No one. You were in a band that was going nowhere trying your best to find the money to record a CD, or hoping that you could book a venue to make some money to pay the bills. Then Ben came along and saw something in you that he knew was good, and right, and took you under his wing. He took a chance on you Keith, just like he did with me, and Shaun and Jasen. All of us. We were nothing before Ben came along. So you know damn well that he doesn’t just do this for anybody. He sees things in people that they don’t. He lifts them up and makes them believe in themselves so that they can be better people.” I paused to wipe the rain out of my eyes and pointed down to the unconscious Thomas lying in the mud. “He saw something in Thomas too, so don’t go telling me that you’re okay with just leaving him out here to die. He’s a human being, Keith, and he might not mean anything to you, but that doesn’t make him expendable. Please, do the right thing here.”

Keith looked down at Thomas who was starting to wake up. He hadn’t been hit very hard, and was only momentarily stunned. “Fine, whatever. Put him in the back, just make sure that he doesn’t get in my way again.” 

Hurrying over to him, I knelt down beside Thomas who had just managed to get himself into a sitting position. He was holding the side of his head where Keith had hit him, and I could see a small trickle of blood flowing out from between his fingertips. He was completely soaked now, and shivering with the cold, absolutely miserable. “Come on, Thomas let’s get you back in where it’s warmer.” I said in a soothing tone. I slipped an arm around his back and helped him get to his feet. He tried to shrug me off, but I wouldn’t let him. I could tell just by the look on his face that he regretted the words he had said to me and was feeling awful. 

Leaning against me, he whispered as we walked back to the vehicle. “You’re making the wrong decision here. Going to Dawn isn’t a good idea, I just know it. There’s this voice in the back of my head, it keeps telling me that it’s dangerous. I can feel it in my bones. Death is there, and she’s waiting for us.”

I sloshed through the rain and mud, and opened the back door for him. “Of course it’s dangerous, Thomas. If that’s where Rhiannon’s body is then she’s going to have it guarded. No one said that it was going to be easy to find it and dispose of it, but there’s nothing that we can do now, once we get there, we will make a plan and take care of it. You’re just feeling anxious about what we have to do. Murder isn’t a simple thing, and it goes against every part of me to even consider it, but my friends and family are at risk here, as well as Prox, and I will do whatever it takes to make sure that she is stopped. We want the same thing here, can’t you see that.”

Thomas put his hand up on top of the door, and glanced over to Keith, who was standing near the driver’s side door with a disgusted look on his face. “That’s what I want too, but we’re going about it all wrong.” He brought his hand up to his head for a moment and closed his eyes, the pain from the injury nagging at him. “I don’t know why, but I have this feeling that something awful is waiting for us all at Dawn. It keeps screaming at me to stay away. If I try to ignore it, it picks at the inside of my head.” The rain pounded down and soaked into the curls of his hair, and he reached up to push them away from his face and opened his eyes, looking directly at me. “Dustin, I am pretty sure that you’re going to die in there.”

“Can we please get going?” Keith called out over the thunder. “If you haven’t noticed, the storm is getting worse and this path is going to be completely flooded soon. So unless you guys have a boat or canoe, I suggest that you get in and let’s get the hell out of here. 

Giving me a warning glance, Thomas slipped into the backseat and I shut the door behind him. Keith came around and tossed me the keys. “Here, you know the way, you can drive. I need to keep an eye on him anyway.”

“He’s not going to cause you any trouble.”

“Yeah, whatever you say. I’ll feel better if I can keep an eye on him. Get in and drive.” Keith said in a curt, almost insulting tone. He moved around to get into the passenger side and I took a moment to look down at Thomas, who was now leaning his head back against the seat with his eyes closed. His words chilled me to the bone, and I couldn’t help but to wonder if there was something to them. His mother, Selene would often see things, visions of the future and have some psychic flashes, but no one ever took her seriously. I couldn’t help but to wonder if perhaps he had the gift as well, but never spoke out about it before. This new behavior of his was certainly out of line for how he was, and it frightened me. There was certainly a change for the worse in him, but was it these inherited abilities from his mother that were suddenly now coming to life, or something else? Brock once told me that after a visor had been used and removed from a person, for a short time after, the electronic impulses going to the brain get scrambled, and it leads to confusion, angry outbursts and erratic behavior. It fades away after a few hours, and is never permanent, but Thomas did suffer from it once before. That’s what it had to be. It was merely a side effect that we had to just power through. Dawn was still a few hours drive from where we were, and I let myself believe that if we left him alone, Thomas might be able to sleep it off, and come to his senses before we arrived. We couldn’t let him go in like this, he’d be a danger to us all.

Rolling down the window, Keith yelled back at me. “Hey, are you coming, or are you just going to stand out there and wait for the next bus? Get in man!”

I pulled open the driver’s side door and flopped inside, noticing for the first time how disgustingly wet I was. Taking off my glasses, I wiped the rain droplets off them and buckled myself in, feeling Keith’s eyes on me. “What?” I asked as I accelerated down the path, keeping my eyes focused on the road ahead of me.

Keith shrugged. “I was just thinking that when we get to Dawn, one of us is going to have to be the person who kills Rhiannon.”

“Yeah of course, that’s why we are going there. We take the visor off of her and she becomes powerless. Then we destroy the body and it all ends. That’s been the plan all along.” 

Shifting slightly in his seat, Keith turned around for a moment to check on Thomas, who was now sleeping soundly in the back. “You don’t quite get it yet, do you? Dustin, we are going to Dawn to murder Rhiannon Burnley, that’s Benjamin’s wife. They’ve been together for years. One of us has to be the one to actually end her life.” 

A heavy weight began to descent on my chest. I kept my eyes on the road. I had to keep looking forward, don’t think about anything else. “There’s no need for you to worry, I will do it.” I said quietly.

“Then you will be the one to look into Benjamin’s eyes and tell him exactly what happened. No lying or making excuses, Dustin. If you do this, you have to be able to accept full responsibility for your actions. Benjamin is a tough guy, he never lets his emotions show, or admit that things bother him, but I can guarantee you that this…this is going to completely devastate him. Psycho bitch or not, she was his first love, they shared so many things together, including a child. I am not sure how he’s going to take it, but you have to be prepared for him to possibly lash out at you in retaliation.”

“I know Benjamin. He’s stronger than you think, and we’ve been through so much together this last year, I think he will understand. Benjamin can’t truly hate anyone, it’s not in his nature.” I replied, trying to keep my voice as steady as possible. I knew deep inside that it could go either way, and I had to be prepared for the worst. I knew that what I was planning on doing, I was doing to protect us…. No… to protect Prox and get Brock’s soul back. Ben would understand, he had to.

Taking another glance back at Thomas, Keith slipped his weapon back into his pocket and pushed his wet hair out of his eyes. “I think that you should let him come back home with us. He’s going to need time to recover from all of this, and distance.” I could tell by the tone in his voice that he seemed stressed out and worried. “Dustin…what I am trying to get at is, when all this is over, you need to let him go. Don’t make things worse. Benjamin is still at the Shallow Bay, at least that’s what Thomas said. So don’t go back there. Stay at Dawn. Let me go to him and take care of things. I’ll tell him what happened, and then take him home with me. It will be okay, he’s got all of us to help him through it, in the comfort of a world that he’s familiar with. He can heal there. It’s the right thing to do.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. After all that we had been through together, Keith was actually expecting me to just let go of Ben and let him walk out of my life. It was a preposterous idea and I was shocked and offended that he would even suggest such a thing. “I am doing this because I love him! Do you think that I want to kill someone? No! I wish to god that I didn’t have to take her life, I wish that there was another way around this, but there isn’t! If I don’t do this, I am going to lose Ben forever!”

“You’re going to lose him anyway!!” Keith yelled back at me. “You’re going to murder his fucking wife! How do you think he’s going to take that! I am trying to give you the best option here, because quite frankly we both have no idea how he’s going to react.”

Behind us, I heard Thomas start to stir slightly. Our argument must have disturbed him. “I’d rather take my chances with Ben face to face then run away from my problems. You don’t know him like I do. You didn’t see what happened to him the last time that he…”

“stop…” Thomas called out from behind us, pulling himself up.

Keith pulled his gun back out and pointed it at him. “Mind your own business and sit back or else I swear I will use this on you.”

I turned my head slightly, staring at Keith brandishing the weapon in Thomas’s face. “Put that goddam thing away before someone gets hurt!”

“….stop!” Thomas said again from the back seat, only this time it was louder and more anxious. 

Reaching over the seat, Keith grabbed Thomas by the front of the shirt and held it tightly. “I said shut up, and I meant it.”

“STOP! LOOK!” Thomas shouted, as Keith hit the limit of his patience and forcibly shoved him as hard as he could against the back seat. I heard his body hit the cushion with a thud and turned back to Keith who was now facing the front of the vehicle. Suddenly, his eyes went wide and he reached over, trying to grab the steering wheel out of my hands. 

“What are you doing!?” I yelled, trying my best to wrench it free from him.

“LOOK!” Keith pointed to the window and immediately I put both of my feet on the brake pedal, sending all three of us rushing forward with great speed while the vehicle came to a halt. I heard Thomas body collide with the seat and slump down to the floor in a dull thump. Next to me, I saw Keith fall back and his head lull forward, unconscious. My eyes went to the spiderweb cracked windshield that was dripping with blood. He had hit his head against the glass with tremendous force, knocking his glasses off. There was a four inch long gash at his temple, from the impact that was bleeding fiercely that worried me. Reaching over, I grabbed his wrist and felt for a pulse, then breathed a sigh of relief. He was alive. I leaned back in my seat for a moment, clutching at my chest which had collided with the steering wheel, preventing me from hitting the window as well. No broken ribs, but there would definitely be some major bruising that would be causing me severe pain for hours afterword. 

As I sat there, my eyes looked past the cracked glass, out into the rainstorm to what had caused me to stop so suddenly. There, standing a few feet in front of me was the dark shape of a person, dressed head to toe in black. The lightning high overhead lit up the area around us, and I could see that somehow, we were at the entrance of Dawn already. Confusion washed over me, it should have taken us hours to get there, and now here we were, right at the doorstep to the very place that we wanted to be. On the outside, Dawn didn’t look like a messenger base at all, but instead the ancient, twisted stone ruins of some long forgotten civilization. There were huge stone spirals that went far up into the sky, laden with thick, lush green ivy that reminded me more of a medieval castle than anything else. The remnants of what looked like old rooms littered the landscape around it, some missing walls, others missing ceilings, all of which had the purpose of concealing the true entrance to the base. Aaron and the others were careful to keep it secret, well hidden away from the FEC.

The dark figure stood at one of the ancient, wrought iron gates that surrounded the base with the wind wildly whipping the thick black cloak around their body. Slowly, I got out of the vehicle, pulling my jacket tight around me and stepped forward into the bright illumination of the headlights. “Who are you?” I called out over the rain. There was no answer. “I need help, my friends, they are injured, can you help us?” The figure didn’t move or speak, but instead stood motionless as ever. “Are you from Dawn?” I asked. It moved it’s hooded head slightly, shaking it in a ‘no’. “Okay so you’re not one of the messengers, that’s fine…look I need to get in the base there do you know the way in?” Still no answer.

Behind me, I heard one of the vehicle’s doors open and soon Thomas came to join me at my side. He seemed to be alright. “Who is that?” He asked.

“I don’t know. They were standing right in the middle of the road where we were going, and I slammed on the brakes to avoid hitting them, and then after we stopped, I got out and found that we were here.”

Looking around, Thomas gasped. “This is Dawn. How did we get here so quickly?”

Rolling my eyes in frustration, I yelled at him over the storm. “I don’t know, Thomas! That’s what I am trying to figure out! If this is Dawn, then how the fuck do we get in?”

“That way.” He pointed towards the gate with the figure who was standing in front of them. “The stairs lead down to a metal door which is the actual entryway, this is all just a cover.”

“That’s what I was afraid of.” I frowned. The person standing there in front of us, was unarmed, but they were there for a reason and were not going to just let us pass by without difficulty. Slowly I started to walk forward. “We need to get by, can you please let us pass?” The moment my foot moved forward, the figure held out it’s gloved hand. I could feel the hair on my arms stand up as the electricity in the air started to increase. In the air, I could now see these sparks of light that looked like fireflies which were painted purple surround us. The floated around, like embers from a fire, swirling in the wind with a delicate grace as they all came together in the hand of the figure in front of us. Thomas and I watched in awe as the purple flashes of energy started gathering one on top of the other, as they formed what looked like a long staff of some sort, which the person held out horizontally in front of them. Behind it, there was a crack of loud thunder than made the two of us jump followed by a flash of lighting which momentarily blinded us. As the light faded, the figure in front of us now held onto a long black wooden lacquered scythe, topped off with a beautiful gleaming silver razor sharp blade. Moving it to a vertical position, they jammed it into the ground and there was a loud boom, which shook the ground, nearly knocking us off our feet. I stared in shock and wonder at the sight before me; it was both beautiful and terrible at the same time. 

I looked over to Thomas, who was completely transfixed and mesmerized by the vision. He leaned over to me and whispered. “Dustin, we need to go. This doesn’t feel right.”

“It’s just one person. We came all the way here to do this and we can’t turn back now. Someone is messing with us, trying to scare us off. For all we know, this could be something that Rhiannon has put into our heads to try and stop us from getting in there. We have to go in. The sooner we get this done, the sooner that we can go back to the Shallow Bay.” I saw him glaring at me, but there was nothing I could do or say that would make him feel better. The once level-headed Thomas who didn’t believe in the supernatural was suddenly a believer. The visor must have really scrambled his brains. “Come on.” I said, pulling at his arm. We moved forward together and the dark figure once again slammed the scythe down onto the ground, this time with more force and we both fell down to the muddy ground in a ungraceful flop. The lights from the vehicle shone brightly as the figure started to walk closer, approaching us. I could vaguely see now that it was a woman, who was wearing black laced up boots, a long black coat with a black cape attached to the shoulders and a hood concealing her face. She tightened the grip on her weapon as she moved forward. I could hear the sound of her boots sloshing in the mud as she came closer and closer. Only a foot away from us, with a delicate motion, she lifted the heavy weapon up with ease, holding it high over her head. The silver blade gleamed brightly with each flash of lightning that flew across the sky, jumping from cloud to cloud. I had a feeling that this was going to be the end, she was going to kill us both, but I couldn’t move. There was something terrible and yet so beautiful about her that held me in place, transfixed. 

Next to me, I could feel Thomas shaking, as he backed up against the front bumper, trying to move away. The figure loomed over me, and I could see the motion as she swung the scythe in a wide arc and brought it down. I would be dead in a matter of seconds. 

I kept my eyes open. If this dark figure was death, then I wanted to look at it for as long as I could. I wanted to see the horror and terror that all men were afraid of and confront it. The love that I had for Ben gave me enough strength to last the remaining seconds of my life that I had left. I waited for the moment when that blade would slice into my flesh and I would feel the warm blood run down my body. Taking my last breath, I mentally prepared myself to accept my fate when suddenly there was a bright flash, and then the smell of burning fabric. The figure in front of me stumbled backwards off balance and Keith came around the corner of the vehicle, his gun smoking with the discharge of the bolt of electricity he had shot at it. I heard the weapon charge up and he pulled the trigger again and again and again. The figure reeled back, but did not fall. Moving around to the front of the vehicle, Keith bent down next to us. “Are you okay? What is that thing?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. Here help me up.” Taking his hand, I let Keith pull me to my feet, followed by Thomas. I glanced over at him to see if he was okay. “Hey…are you alright.”

Thomas’s eyes were set on the dark shape who was now standing up at the gate again. There were holes from where the bolt had hit it, but it didn’t seem to be affected by it at all. “We need to turn back, now. Before this gets any worse, Dustin. Please, let’s just go.”

Keith laughed. “What? Are you out of your mind? I hit her, can’t you see the damage it did? That was on the lowest setting, if I turn up the power on this gun, I am pretty sure that I can get her out of the way.” He said, as he started to fiddle with the power voltage.

Moving past Keith, Thomas approached me. He had a pleading look on his face, and was obviously disturbed. “Dustin. Come on. Listen to me. I know I keep saying that something isn’t right, but THIS…” he pointed to the figure. “This is wrong. Can’t you see that someone or something is trying to prevent us from getting in. This is a sign that we shouldn’t be here. If you keep this up, I don’t know what will happen, but I do know that it won’t be good. Can’t you feel the waves of power coming off of her? She's knows who we are, and she knows why we are here!”

I looked at him curiously. “Thomas how do you know who that woman is under that cloak?” I pointed towards the figure. “Do you know who she is?”

Before he could say another word, Keith pulled out his weapon and pulled the trigger. There was huge blast of energy from the gun, which soared out from the barrel and hit the figure square in the chest, knocking it back against the gates and down onto the ground. “Son of a bitch!” Keith yelled, and threw the weapon down. It was overheated and white hot from being set too high. 

Seeing it hit the ground, I immediately kicked it away, where it flew into a puddle of water and disappeared. “What the fuck do you think you are doing? That was dangerous!” I screamed at him.

“I was trying to get a obstacle out of the way, Dustin. Which is more than I can say for what you are both doing, standing around here with your jaws flapping open. You said it yourself that we are short on time, and we have a mission to accomplish. I don’t know why you’re not taking action here.” Keith came right up to me and jammed a finger into my chest. “You know what I think? I think that when it comes down to it, you aren’t going to be able to kill Rhiannon. You are going to back down and everything is going to go to hell, because you don’t have what it takes to take a life. You are just like you were back home on Earth, you’re nothing more than a coward.”

Grabbing his wrist, I pulled Keith’s hand away from me. “Don’t call me that! You have no idea what’s going on here on Prox, and you never will. You don’t belong here, so I suggest that you get Shaun and get the hell out of here.” I felt Thomas's hand on my shoulder, and I tried to shrug him off. Now wasn’t the time for his futile attempts at comfort, I wanted to make sure that my point with Keith was well made. “Stop it Thomas, we’re discussing something here.”

“No Dustin.. Look!” He said, pulling me over closer to the dark figure. As we neared her, she started to rise back up. Part of her hood had fallen away, and I could see the long, black curls of hair spill out from around the fabric. Her face was now partially exposed and I could get a good look at her face. I was looking Selene Bell.

“Selene! Oh my God! Selene!” I reached out for her and Thomas held me back, shaking his head. A well timed flash of lightening crashed overhead, illuminating her fully for the first time and I could see that her once beautiful deep brown eyes had been consumed, and there was nothing there but shimmering large black orbs of darkness staring back at me.

The massive steel doors of Dawn flew open and Benjamin walked inside, carrying the child in his arms. As he walked down the corridor, the lights on either side began to flicker, heralding his presence with a eerie electronic hum. He approached the end of the hall and was met by a very tired looking man with dark circles under his eyes. “Benjamin. Hey. It’s good to see you again. I’ve missed you so much man. Everybody does. After you died, things just weren’t the same and….oh man I just want to hug you, but ah I can see that you’re kind of occupied at the moment…maybe after this is all over we can…”

“Where is she Shaun?” Ben said, interrupting him.

“Oh yeah. That’s why you’re here. She told me you were coming, I will show you the way.” Motioning for him to follow, Shaun led Benjamin through the twisting corridors of Dawn, past all the private rooms and labs, to a hidden section of the base. “I don’t know exactly what’s going on here Ben, but I know it’s not good and to be honest I am kind of scared. I thought that there would be more people here, but when I got here, it was empty. I had no idea where anyone was, and had to do a bit of exploring to find her.” Reaching a large room, Shaun stopped in front of it. “She’s in there…So I was thinking that since you found her, we can wake her up and then the four of us can all go home together? I really don’t like this place…wherever it is. It gives me the creeps.”

Looking down to the baby in his arms, Ben gently ran his fingers down the side of his face and he smiled in his sleep. “No Shaun, we’re not going home yet…there are still things to do. Important things.” With a gentle motion, he handed the baby over. “Take him to the lab on the next floor down, you will find a cradle there. Watch over him until I come for him, understood?”

Reaching out, Shaun took the child from Ben’s arms, and for a moment, he noticed how strangely warm his skin was. “Ben are you okay? You don’t look so good. Wait, why are your eyes like that. Are you wearing contacts?”

Benjamin stepped forward and being taller than Shaun, he loomed over him menacingly. “Don’t ask any questions, just do as I say.”

Trembling, Shaun took a step back, suddenly filled with fear. The baby in his arms started to cry. “Yeah, sure. Whatever you want. We will be waiting for you.” Turning around, he started to walk away, when Ben suddenly grabbed him by the elbow, yanking him back around. “What the fuck Ben?” Shaun asked, astonished.

Benjamin dug his fingers painfully into the flesh of Shaun’s arm and as he started to protest, he pulled him close and bent down and forced a kiss upon his partly open lips. Inhaling deeply, Shaun picked up a sickly sweet scent of rose petals on Ben’s warm skin, but tasted nothing but dirt and ash upon his lips. Confused and frightened, he tried to pull away, but Ben held him in place, not letting go or giving him any freedom of movement. He was a unwilling prisoner. After several seconds, Benjamin broke the kiss but left his lips resting against Shaun’s, and reached up, letting his fingers caress the line of his jaw, scratching through the layers of his facial hair. “I know you’ve wanted this for so long, but were afraid to admit it. I feel it inside of you, lurking underneath all the layers of the perfect life that you pretend to have. It’s always been there, waiting to be released, a lustful desire to become something more than you are. Don’t lie to yourself any longer. Tell me how much you want this, how much you need it.”

His heart beating rapidly, Shaun could feel the color rising to his face, and could do nothing but stand there, motionless and hold onto the child in his arms. He refused to let it go. “Benjamin… I… uh….”

Slipping his hand down from Shaun’s jaw to the side of his neck, Benjamin wrapped his fingers around it, applying light pressure. “I can take you places that you have never been before, show you beautiful sights that your eyes would never see. All I ask is that you do as I say. Be faithful to me and I will give you the entire world, Shaun.” Loosening is fingers, Benjamin stepped away from his trembling friend and smiled at him. 

Stumbling off as fast as he could down the hallway, Shaun took off, every instinct telling him to get as far away as possible. He thought about when Rhiannon told him that Benjamin would be arriving at Dawn, he was excited and couldn’t wait to see him again. Back on Earth Ben’s death devastated Shaun, more so than the others, near to the point where each passing moment without him filled him with intense sorrow and rage. Suffering from depression and self-doubt, Ben was the only person who was able to him out of his own misery and give him a new life. He owed it all to him. Seeing Ben now, this wasn’t the reunion that he had hoped for. Looking into his eyes filled him with fear and terror, this wasn’t the man that he had loved and cared for, but a empty hollow shell instead. Something was definitely wrong here, it all felt wrong, and he knew that he had to find a way out. 

Upon reaching the lab, Shaun flicked on the lights and found that it was strangely empty, recently washed and sanitized incredibly clean. All the furniture had been moved from the room, with the exception of a steel baby cradle in the middle of the room. Slowly, he approached it, still clutching the fussing child in his arms. He paced back and forth, walking circles around it, unwilling to let go of the baby. “What’s going on here, Benjamin?” He said out loud to the empty room. The taste of ash and death still lingered on his lips “What are you doing?”

Benjamin entered the room, and was immediately struck with a tremendous pain. The bright fluorescent lights which hung overhead were too much for him, and he fumbled for the light switch, grasping for it and turning it off as quickly as he could. Taking a moment to catch his breath, he looked down at his hands that were still flecked with blood from the incident at the Shallow Bay and noticed how thin and gaunt they appeared to be. Pulling off his leather jacket, he threw it onto the floor and walked away from it. He remembered a time when he wore that jacket everywhere, it was like a security blanket for him. Now it hung on his shoulders like a weight, holding him down and crushing him. He had to get rid of it. Underneath the jacket, he wore a simple plain black t-shirt instead of his normal black button down attire. He didn’t need to fit in or try to pretend he was something that he wasn’t anymore. That life was over. 

Lifting his head up, he made his way over to the hospital bed in the center of the room where his wife was sleeping. There were various wires and tubes connected to her, providing her body with the basic chemicals that it needed to survive. She wasn’t disheveled or gaunt at all, but looked healthy and lively. The FEC did a wonderful job of keeping her alive and well preserved. Reaching out, Benjamin pulled back the thin sheet that covered her naked body and tossed it down onto the ground. Her skin was perfect and unblemished, not a single mark on it at all. Gently, he placed his fingers on the side of her leg and ran them up the side of her body, over the curve of her hip, across the ribs and over her chest, his delicate touch caressing the porcelain white skin. There was a sudden increase in the lights running across the visor that was attached to her face, and her lifeless lips seem to gain a little color. Picking up one of her hands, Ben held onto it tightly and placed it against his chest as he ran his fingers through the length of her long, blond hair. “Burnley was right. I wasn’t there to protect you…or him. This is all my fault. I think that it’s time we end this…suffering.” Bringing her hand up to his lips, he kissed it, letting his warm lips remain there against her ice cold flesh. Holding onto to it tightly, Benjamin reached down with his other hand and grabbed hold of the edge of the visor. “Forgive me.” He whispered into the silent room and then started to pull on the device, stretching out the connectors which held it in place. Lying on the bed, Rhiannon started to scream, and Ben held onto her hand tighter as he applied more pressure to the device. The lights which ran across it started to flash and increase with her pulse, trying to reconnect through the distorted signal. As it started to spark, there was this sickening scent of burnt flesh in the air, and Rhiannon’s body started to go into a seizure. Her hand slipped away from Ben’s, and he took the opportunity to grab the visor with both hands, letting out a loud yell as he put every ounce of strength that he had into his arms, finally wrenching the visor free from her head. 

Rhiannon’s body slammed back down onto the gurney, and Benjamin threw the visor across the room, where it exploded in a sea of silver sparks and immediately caught fire. Moving around her body, he took hold of each of the tubes that were inserted into her and yanked them out. She took a long last breath, and her eyes suddenly shot open for a moment, and then promptly closed. The air that she had taken into her lungs escaped and her head lulled to one side. Glancing up at the heart monitor, Benjamin watched as the flashing green peaks of lights grew smaller and smaller, until there was nothing left but a flat line. 

One single tear fell from his eye and he was forced to turn away. He knew that he should be overcome with emotion, his wife and mother of his son had just died, but he felt nothing but a coldness inside of him. Glancing up, he saw his reflection in the dark screen of the monitor and was completely taken back by it. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The person gazing back at him was thin and wasted away, his clothing hanging from him like cheap bed sheets hung from a clothes line. High, sunken in cheekbones framed his pale face which was covered in a thick dark beard accented by horrible amber colored eyes. A shiver ran down his spine, he realized that he looked like his son, Burnley now. A wave of nausea overcame him. Something wasn’t right, the pain he had felt in his head before was coming back, and it wasn’t caused by the lights this time. There was a hunger inside of him that he felt once before, it had returned, only this time it was much worse, much more intense and fueling him with terrible thoughts of violence. He knew that he had to leave before things got worse, he had done what he came here to do. There was no reason for him to stick around any longer. 

Throwing the doors open, Benjamin made his way out to the hall. He paused and looked to the corridors that led out of Dawn to the surface of Prox. He could hear the rain still falling on the roof far overhead, but the thunder and lightening seem to have died down. Taking a moment, he considered going outside for some fresh air, and then turned around and started to walk the opposite way, towards the lab that he had sent Shaun and the baby. As he made it to the end of the hall, he stopped and closed his eyes. Underneath the sound of the rain, he could hear the patter of bare feet on the concrete. Then he heard her voice. 

“Benjamin... stay with me, don't let me go.”

He didn’t turn around.


End file.
